


The Games of Broken Stars

by BroadwayStarletQueen



Series: Games of Broken Stars Trilogy [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, M/M, Romance, Time Babies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-16
Updated: 2013-05-04
Packaged: 2017-12-08 15:28:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 46,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/762980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BroadwayStarletQueen/pseuds/BroadwayStarletQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River Song has been stolen by a mysterious adversary, and the Doctor decides it’s high-time that a good man goes to war again for River.  This time, he enlists the help of the cleverest people he knows: a certain consulting detective duo.  With the help of Sherlock and John, the Doctor dives into a daring rescue and tears the universe apart to win back his family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: 

 

“So, where exactly are you off to, Chin Boy?’ Clara asked from her seat by the TARDIS console, not glancing away from her magazine.

The Doctor twirled around the console, checking his reflection giddily in a mirror. “Romancing the missus. Remind me, have you met River yet?”

“Mrs. Doctor? Nope,” Clara said with a bit of a pout. “I do wish you’d told me you were a married man before I made all those ‘snog box’ comments. I try to stick to my morals…”

The Doctor remembered Clara during Christmas, planting a kiss on him before he’d managed to blurt out that he was married and feeling guilty about enjoying it (slightly). But Clara didn’t remember it. “I’d love for her to meet you, but maybe you should…I dunno…make yourself a bit scarce?

Clara raised an eyebrow. “She’s the jealous type?”

“You could say that. Maybe ‘possessive’ is a better term,” the Doctor mused. He pulled a few levers and landed the TARDIS. “Here—you have the day off. Run out and get us chips. I’ll be back in five minutes.”

“You always say that,” Clara groaned, reluctantly leaving the TARDIS. “How long will your date take?”

“I’m picking her up and taking her on our ninth honeymoon,” he smiled to himself. “Knowing River, I’d say about two weeks. But I also happen to be the owner of a time machine—so I’ll be back in five minutes.”

She rolled her eyes. “Have fun, you madman. Five minutes?”

“Five minutes.”

Clara exited the TARDIS and left the jittery Doctor alone. He hadn’t seen River since the Angels, and he was a bit nervous for her to hear about Clara, even though she’d urged him to find another companion. Then again, she might just make a fuss over the new interior of the TARDIS as opposed to blowing up about his new, flirty companion.

He straightened his bowtie and pulled all the right knobs to lock onto River’s location. He was so excited to see her again. Each time they met, he was more and more in love, and he truly felt like a madman in love. Things in his life were finally finding order again.

After typing in her coordinates, however, something happened.

The TARDIS screeched, a high keen that ripped through the Doctor’s ears. He tried to pinpoint the source of the noise, but smoke began to billow out of the console. Spluttering and choking, he backed away and searched for the main screen, which buzzed and crackled with confusion.

“Come on, old girl,” he said, trying not to panic. The TARDIS had been broken dozens of times. This was nothing unusual…and yet, as the lights in the TARDIS dimmed, the Doctor couldn’t help but worry that something was truly wrong.

The screen came to life with the simple words: RIVER SONG NOT FOUND.

He shook his head, not believing it. River Song was somewhere in the universe. The time machine should get a lock on her, wherever she was.

He tried typing in her coordinates again, using the biological information he had on her to force the TARDIS to track her DNA stamp and take him to her, but the TARDIS continued to wail. The screen repeated it’s earlier message. RIVER SONG NOT FOUND.

He shook his head, willing himself to keep it together. There was a reason. There was an explanation. He took the screeching TARDIS to Stormcage, to each spot they’d ever been on honeymoons, everywhere she could possibly be, and they all were empty. Devoid of River Song, the universe continued to be, to no one’s panic but the Doctor’s.

His head was spinning, breaking open with a thousand unspeakable fears, because one simple truth hung in the air: River Song was gone.

Not dead, incinerated by her sacrifice in the Library. Not missing, with the chance of being found. She was, quite literally, gone—vanished off the plane of the universe. Nowhere to be found. The TARDIS could find anyone, anywhere in time and space, but when he piloted his way to her, the console screeched and sparked on fire. His computer had no trace of her past the last time she’d been with him. Someone or something had plucked River out of this existence, and since she died in the Library, they hadn’t done away with her. She was alive, somehow, but not in his universe.

Where is she?

A million possibilities ran through his mind, each one too grotesque and impossible to fit his logic, and he slammed his fist on the console. “WHERE IS SHE?!?!” he screamed, a bloody rage in his eyes.

River was gone. River was taken. Something horrible could be happening to River, right this moment. Just because she wasn’t dead didn’t mean innumerable worse conditions could fall upon her. Memory wipes. Torture. Incarceration. Pain and suffering, and abandonment, because wherever she was, however hopeless she felt, she was a stubborn woman—and she would hold out until her last breath for the Doctor to rescue her.

Again he slammed his fist on the console, which flared red momentarily to warn him against taking out his anger on its control board. He’d seldom been this angry.

Part of this was his fault. If he’d picked her up earlier, if he’d checked on her, if he’d answered his bloody phone, he could have kept River safe.

As if by magic, the entire control room of the TARDIS went dark—and the screen blinked an eerie shade of blue. The Doctor slowly looked up, dreading what he’d see but knowing that whoever was causing the screen to flicker deserved his very best glare, and gazed at the screen.

“Kovarian,” he hissed. “What a surprise. Can’t say it’s a pleasant one.”

The evil woman gave him a hideous smirk, toadlike in its superiority. “You never thought you’d see me again, did you?”

“Indeed I didn’t. Pretty sure the Apollo 11 message did the trick on your lot. Or the paradoxical universe exploding. Or that you’d just forgotten me, like you were supposed to. Isn’t that what you’re best at?” he said quietly. “Forgetting?”

“One little Time Lord is bound to make a lot of noise, erased from records or not,” she smiled. “And you tried so hard to keep quiet. And you’re right—the Silence are nearly extinct as a result of your murderous little prank. Very few survived.”

“Can’t imagine they’re giving you much of a salary if they’re depending on you for survival.”

“Oh, I’m not employed by the Silence anymore—not really,” she said, shrugging off his accusation. “No, I work for a much larger network now.”

“Let me guess—all different species, all over the universe, and they all want me dead.”

“Not quite,” she cackled. “No, I don’t work for the Silence. I’m part of one of the biggest webs in the universe now. And my employer doesn’t want you dead. He just wants to own you.” She shook her head. “You’ve made the most common mistake in the universe. One you didn’t even know you’d made, yet one that made it so easy for us to find you once more.”

“Where’s River?”

“Oh, ho, ho, Doctor,” she laughed maliciously, spitting at the screen. “What is it that you say? ‘Rule 1: The Doctor lies.’ Well, I think you need to revise that one. Let’s make Rule 1 something much more prudent, shall we?”

“What could be more prudent,” he groaned, “than not trusting me?”

“How about you ask your precious little wife?”

With that, another screen flickered to life—and there she was. River Song. Alive. Breathing. Hair out of place, eyes trying to hide terror. Not tied up or cuffed, just standing, holding herself, in a nondescript cell.

Looking for him. Not finding him.

“River!!!” he shouted, unable to help himself.

“Turn on the intercom,” Kovarian chuckled to a lackey offscreen. “Let her hear her sweet, sweet Doctor.”

The Doctor rushed over to her screen, drinking in the sight of her. “River, it’s me! Honey, it’s me! Can you hear me?”

She blinked, not quite believing it. “Second honeymoon?”

Second honeymoon was their code for a situation like this, to verify their true identities. No one else had been anywhere near them when they’d gone on their second honeymoon, one of many, so they’d come up with several emergency phrases to use there.

“Vesta 9,” he said, immediately gaining her trust with the right answer. “Remember the green stars? You told me they looked like candy you’d had when you were a kid.”

“Then we went looking through the TARDIS for chocolate—Doctor!” she cried, running toward the voice in her room. “It’s really you!”

“Can you see me?”

“N-no, it’s just your voice. Where are you? Are you safe?”

“I’m fine, don’t you worry about me.” He stared straight at her terrified face, trying to keep it together for him, and said firmly, “Don’t you worry about a thing. Stay where you are. Keep as safe as you can. I’m going to find you and I’m going to bring you home.”

“Doctor, please—you can’t!” Her blue eyes, slightly bloodshot from being awake too long, struggled to find focus. “Please, my love, whatever you do—you know this is a trap. Please, they can’t do anything to me if they don’t have you, just stay away.”

“I have to find you!” he choked, not tearing his eyes away even to give Kovarian the fury she deserved. “Who has you? What do they want?”

River bit her lip and tried to think. “I don’t know. I woke up here. I haven’t seen anyone or anything.”

She looked lost, she looked scared, she looked dizzy. River Song, his wife, was never was scared, not of a single thing in this world. Not even her own death scared her. The Doctor looked at her swaying frame on the screen, wanting desperately to be with her and smooth down the flyaways in her hair and hold her. She was in trouble.

He tried to talk softly, calmly, if only to settle her. “How are you feeling, honey?”

“F-fine.”

“They’re not hurting you?”

“No.”

“Are they looking after you?”

“Yes.”

He tried to keep it light, knowing Kovarian was listening and could cut him off at any moment. “Do you miss me?”

She cracked a weak smile. “Very much.”

“What, no flirty banter, Professor Song?” he grinned. “You must really be scared.”

“Now’s not the time flirt.”

“Every time is a good time to flirt.”

“Not this one.”

His smile faded. “Do you want to know if I miss you?”

“Yes.”

“I do.” He gritted his teeth. “When I couldn’t find you, I nearly went mad.”

“Oh, like you weren’t mad already.”

“There’s the Song I know.”

Kovarian clucked her teeth impatiently. “Is this fun for you, Doctor? Talking to your wife through a screen?”

He straightened up and stared at her directly in the eyes. “Let her go. You don’t need her. You want me, don’t you? How will kidnapping her bring me to you, after you just let her tell me not to come after her?”

“Oh, Doctor, I told you, you should have changed Rule 1.” Her smiled widened, sickening the Doctor until he could have punched the screen. “We don’t want Professor Song—in fact, she proved a disappointment to all of us, and she will be dealt with accordingly for that, but for now, she has a gift that we’d much rather use first.”

“And what is that?”

River worked her voice up to a yell, looking fiercely at the ceiling of her cell to broadcast to Kovarian. “Don’t you dare!” she screamed. “Don’t you dare do this to him!”

“Doctor, did your lovely wife happen to mention—”

“NO! No, please! I’ll do anything!!!”

“—that she was pregnant?”   
A sick, strained silence fell in the darkened TARDIS. He could do nothing but stare in horror and disbelief at the cackling Kovarian, as River crumpled into tears on the other screen.

Kovarian licked her lips. “Rule 1, revised: Never fall in love, Doctor. It never ends well for you…or for her.”


	2. Chapter 2

The Doctor felt like he’d exploded.

His brain had shattered into a million stars, free from worry, untethered from life as he knew it. Nothing held him to the ground anymore. Nothing made sense. All he could hear was the distinct buzz of disbelief in his ears.

River was pregnant.

Kovarian continued to cackle, waiting in her joy for the Doctor to respond. River sobbed to herself on the ground, clutching herself and begging uselessly to Kovarian to turn off the transmission.

River—was pregnant.

Words came out of his mouth, but he had no thought behind them. “The child—it’s—”

“Yours,” River promised, perking up immediately at the sound of his strangled voice. “Yes, it’s yours—I’ve never—not with anyone else—”

He collapsed into the chair behind him, hyperventilating with shock.

“Doctor, please—I’m sorry, I know—I know this must be difficult for you—I didn’t think it possible—”

“It’s not possible,” he whispered, strained and wide-eyed.

Kovarian burst in with the specifics, unfeeling for the couple in turmoil. “Poor little Time Lord—you were a father once, before the Time War. You never thought it could happen again, did you? Well, who would, what with her genetics and yours, but if you could procreate with anyone, it would be with a part-Time Lady. Didn’t factor protection into your honeymoon plans, did you?”

“We never thought to—oh, my—I can’t—” The Doctor shut his eyes tight and clutched the sides of his head, not believing a word.

He couldn’t be a father. He’d lost his family once, in the Time War. The only person he could procreate with was a full Time Lady. River could not bear his children. The genes wouldn’t match up. The time travel would mess up any potential conception. They had been completely safe on that front.

He couldn’t be a father. It wasn’t possible. He hadn’t been a father in centuries, in millennia. It just wasn’t possible. How could this happen?

“It’s yours, no question,” Kovarian continued reading his mind. “Our scanners told us everything we need to know. Almost entirely a Time Lord baby, about two months along. Poor River didn’t want to worry you; oh, she knew how you’d go on about it. Another Time Lord in the universe. Dangerous. Unnatural. Wrong. She planned to give birth in secret and do her best to keep it from you, for your own protection. She knew you wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

River tried to argue, but the accusations that the Doctor would think their baby was unnatural hit too deeply and kept her from forming a word without a cry behind it. She waited desperately for his voice to come back and give her some sort of reassurance.

For the Doctor’s part, he stayed stationary, still shocked.

Despite the power behind his child’s existence, somehow the enemy didn’t want to use his baby. They were just holding his wife and child ransom—for what?

To control him. To get him to do whatever they wanted.

That’s when the white-hot emotion came out. He wasn’t sure what the emotion was—anger, love, determination, hope—but it emerged, burning deep within. And it told him that his baby was not a mistake.

A Time Lord child was impossible, unnatural, and very, very dangerous, but it was one of his own kind, part of him. A little piece of him and River, something strong and full of promise. A piece of forever that he’d helped make, and for once, not by interfering in history. A star in its own right.

A baby.

“Kovarian,” he said in a chilled, measured tone, “I don’t know what sick universe you’ve taken my wife and my child to, but rest assured, I will spend eternity finding you and taking back what’s mine. And when I do—I just might kill you for all the pain you’ve caused.”

“We can do this one of two ways, Doctor: you either give yourself up to us for the lives of your wife and child, or you run, and your family dies.”

He knew that River didn’t die as an outcome of this, and neither did he. “Not quite liking my options, Kovarian. Really liking the idea of swooping in, rescuing my family, and shooting you several times.”

“Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, we both know you never kill. You’ll do the honorable thing you always do, and sacrifice yourself for them. My employer will be very pleased.”

He growled, facing her off. “Kovarian, you can threaten me all you want. You can threaten me to the ends of the earth and I will turn a blind eye. But now you’re the one who should be scared, because you’ve made a Time Lord very, very angry. You’ve threatened something very precious to him, and if I were you, I would be the one trying to run, and I would start running right now. I am coming for you and I will shake the foundations of your entire existence, and,” he said levelly, without blinking, “I will do whatever it takes to secure River’s safety, and our baby’s. Even if that means I have to squeeze the life out of you—drop by drop.”

Kovarian blanched. Shutting her mouth, she swallowed a few times and tried to regain her composure. “You can’t possibly find us.”

“Maybe I should change Rule 1. Rule 1 should be, never send your enemy a live video feed from your location. The TARDIS locked onto you from the minute you started this transmission. Want to tell me I’m wrong?”

“We’ll kill them both if you don’t surrender yourself.”

“I don’t think you would. I think they’re too precious to your boss, whoever he is.”

“This mission is suicide.”

“Well, if it is, no one gets what they want, do they?” He flickered his eyes onto River’s screen, where he saw her looking in awe at the speaker in her room, willing him to speak to her. “Now, Kovarian, before you end this little message, I’d like to have a talk with my wife.”

“I’m afraid we can’t let that happen.”

“Oh, come now, Madame—there’s no secret message I can give her that will help her where she is, and just think: you get a sentimental scene that will make your victory all the more delicious if you ever actually win.”

The edges of her mouth twitched up a little at that. She did love to gloat, the evil woman. “You have five minutes.”

“Thank you. I look forward to defeating you quite completely and watching that smirk disappear off your toad face.”

With a final grimace, Kovarian turned off her screen, and River’s face was the only thing that remained.

Taking a deep breath, the Doctor walked over to her monitor and, very gently, he stroked the screen, willing the pixels to come to life and bring River to him. “River, River, River.”

“Doctor, is it true? Are you coming for me?”

“Try and stop me. All you have to do is hold tight and wait for me.”

She smiled a little, unfolding herself from her crouched position. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t know how I could. Considering your reaction.”

“I know. Sorry about that. I was just—well, I’m scared out of my wits, really, but it doesn’t mean that—” He sighed. “Well. How are you? Are you all right? When did you, um, find out?”

“A month ago. Threw up at a ball on Goushira. Went to the doctor’s the next day. You should have seen his face, seeing the species of the baby.” River smiled. “Another Time Lord. You won’t be alone anymore.”

“I still can’t believe it. When did we—I mean, when would we have—”

River thought back. “Sixth honeymoon?”

“On top of the pyramid we got married on.” He smiled. “That’s really fantastic.”

“Yes, it is.”

An awkward silence fell, remembering all the happenings on those magical nights in Egypt, before the Doctor felt more at ease. What’s more, he felt strangely light and joyful.

Happy.

“River,” he said in wonder, “we’re going to have a baby. A beautiful baby, with my brilliance and your hair—”

“I really hope not. No one else could pull off this hair.”

“Do you know if it’s a—I mean, the gender—”

She looked up and smiled secretly. “Spoilers, sweetie.”

“Oh, come on, please, just this once! I want to know.” He was having trouble keeping all his emotions in check. He was still in shock, but a bubbling joy was about to surface, tinged with fear and a little bit of anger, and he wanted to stay calm for River.

“A girl.”

“A girl…” His eyes went misty. “W-wow. A little girl. A daughter. Oh, River, this is fantastic! This is the coolest thing ever! A beautiful baby girl, with your eyes and your trigger finger, and my sense of style.”

“No daughter of mine is going to wear a bowtie.”

“I will have to convince you. Or, rather, her. She’ll agree with me. She’s going to be a smart baby.”

She bit her lip, trying to contain her spark of happiness. “It’s so good to hear from you. I miss you so much, my love.”

“Be safe, honey. I will be there as soon as I can, I promise you.” He swallowed. “I don’t want to be away from you for another second, I really don’t.”

“Doctor, will it—um, will it hurt her?”

“What? I mean, I hear the delivery is pretty bad, but…”

“No, I mean, carrying her. The genes of a Time Lord in a part-Time Lord body? What if my body sees her as hostile and tries to hurt her?”

He considered it. “You’re going to be fine. She’ll gestate like a human baby. Now, River, you keep safe. Do your best to keep everyone away from you, make sure you eat well, and don’t let them hurt you. I’m on my way, and I’m coming with a reckoning for everyone that decided to cross us.”

She nodded, keeping up her bravery. “We’ll be fine. We’re waiting for you. We love you.”

“Think of some great names while you wait—and please take care of yourself. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.” He blinked away a tear. “I really don’t know what I’d do without you, River. I’m sorry, this is all my fault, I’ve put you in danger, I should have left you alone—”

“Husband, shut up,” she said firmly. “I wouldn’t give up a single minute with you for a safer life, and we both know it.”

“Well, you know what I mean. Don’t let them hurt you, honey. And River?”

“Yes?”

“Take care of our baby. Tell her I—love her. Already. That I always will, no matter what she is.”

River began to cry. “She knows.”

“And tell her to listen to her mum, because she’s one smart lady.”

“She’s an embryo, sweetie, the only command she could obey is to stop making me so sick.”

Kovarian flickered on the screen, replacing the image of a laughing River. “Time’s up, Doctor. You can either run or you can give yourself up—but don’t imagine you can outwit us. He’s even more of a genius than you are, and he wants you. Pulling apart the universe won’t save you now—or your daughter.” And her image disappeared.

The Doctor stared at the blank screen as the TARDIS lights returned. The news had him frozen in place, repeating the ghoulish things Kovarian had said and splicing them with his wife’s beautiful, terrified face. The entire thing echoed with fear and hatred and doubt, and the Doctor shoved it form his mind with a shout.

Now came the time for planning. Someone in the universe had enlisted Kovarian’s help in capturing him. Someone had found his weak point and taken River hostage. Someone expected him to turn himself and his box in to ensure their safety—well, that wasn’t happening. He was the Doctor and he was the cleverest man in the universe, and if he couldn’t save his own family from evil, what was the point?

He briefly considered getting Clara back, but dismissed the idea. He couldn’t bring Clara into this kind of family battle and danger.

But he did need help—the last time he faced Kovarian, he had an army. What he needed now wasn’t brute force. He needed intelligence. He needed someone cleverer than the cleverest man in the universe, someone who understood criminal minds and could take them apart.

The Doctor typed in new coordinates and steered the machine through time and space to the only chance he had at saving River and his daughter.


	3. Chapter 3

John Watson had been having the same nightmare every night for the past two years. True, there were some variations, but the theme remained the same: every night, in nightmares he couldn’t shake with medication, suppressants, meditation, or willpower, he would watch Sherlock jump.

It became part of his routine: go to work, pick up milk at Tesco’s, read a book, catch up on paperwork, dream of Sherlock’s death, pay bills… Some nightmares were worse than others, leaving him shaking, sweating, and screaming. Some you could barely tell he was in the midst of.

Even when Sherlock—amazing, incredible, unfathomable Sherlock—had returned a few weeks ago, and John was the happiest he’d been in ages, the nightmares still came. The first night Sherlock was back at 221B, he had been alarmed to find John thrashing around in bed, begging an invisible man not to jump.

He felt guilty. Neither man wanted him to, but Sherlock did, all the same. He never expressed his guilt, but he made up for it in ways he never did for anyone else. There was always jam in the freezer, next to the bag of toes, and for once, the flat was never out of milk.

So, at 3:57 in the morning on a Tuesday, three weeks after Sherlock had come back from the dead, it was not unexpected that John was in the middle of the same nightmare.

“Sherlock—no, don’t—SHERLOCK!” he screamed, wrenching himself from fitful sleep. He panted, trying to remove sweat from his brow with the back of his hand and untangling his legs from the sheets. Then—“Bloody hell!”

Sherlock was sitting, motionless, on the edge of his bed, legs crossed, fingers steepled, staring straight at John.

John rolled his eyes. “Shit, Sherlock, you can’t bloody well creep up on people like that.”

“You were having a nightmare.”

“I was.”

“About me.”

“Problem?”

Sherlock didn’t blink. “Yes.” Suddenly, he sprang off the bed and fetched the piping hot mug of tea he’d placed there minutes before. “For you.”

John took it gratefully. “I’m not a baby, Sherlock. I’m a grown man, and I’m older than you. It’s not your responsibility to look after me.”

“I would think, given the fact that I’m the reason behind your nightmares, that I should claim some responsibility for my actions,” he said, propping himself up on the desk on the other end of the room. He seemed to have taken the hint that sitting on sleeping people’s beds wasn’t exactly a good idea.

John groaned. “It’s not your fault. We talked about this—you did what you had to do. You saved my life.”

“Irrelevant.”

“It’s not bloody irrelevant.”

“You’ve saved mine.” Sherlock looked just the smallest bit vulnerable. “Twice. And despite the fact that I’m back, and I’ve cleared my name, and things are just as they were, still the nightmares persist.”

John shrugged and walked over, awkwardly putting an arm around Sherlock. That was acceptable—friends did that. “These things don’t just go away. It was a tough moment for me. I’d seen enough gore and blood for a lifetime, but seeing it come out of your head—it was so dark and so red, it was all over your blue scarf, your hair…” Not quite knowing what he was doing, he absentmindedly raked a few fingers through Sherlock’s hair, feeling for the scar. “The blood was real, yeah?”

“Some of it,” Sherlock grudgingly admitted. “I did hit my head. Got a bit of a nasty concussion.”

John nodded before realizing his fingers were still tangled in Sherlock’s hair, and he quickly removed them. “Right. See, we both had a rough time of it and we both walked away with scars. Mine just aren’t physical. I’ll be fine, Sherlock. My therapist said the nightmares will eventually go away.”

“Your therapist is a quack.”

“There’s the Sherlock I know.” John got up and went to the kitchen. “Fancy a late night snack?”

“I don’t fancy anything.”

“Can I force you into sharing something? Toast, maybe?”

Sherlock didn’t bother with a response, but he followed obediently to the kitchen and sat at the table. “Why did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Save my life.”

John paused before putting bread in the toaster. “I could ask you the same question.”

“It wasn’t just your life in danger. Lestrade’s and Mrs. Hudson’s, too.”

“So, I was just part of a list?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Right.” John rummaged around the fridge for butter, ignoring the pile of hands stacked neatly next to the lettuce.

“So why did you do it? Save my life?”

“You were actually going to swallow that pill.”

“Not that time. At the pool, with…”

Both men faltered to say his name after everything that had transpired. Still, Sherlock was of the opinion that names were just names and letters couldn’t haunt people, so he persisted, “With Moriarty. You had a bomb strapped to your chest and yet you still threatened Moriarty, at the expense of your own life, to get me to run. Why would you do that?”

John was saved from answering by the toaster popping up. He offered a piece to Sherlock, who didn’t accept it, and thusly spread jam on both pieces and ate them himself.

“John.”

John didn’t look up until Sherlock said his name, and then he faced the eyes that he’d been afraid of answering to. The truth was, ever since Sherlock came back, things hadn’t been perfect at first. There was too much pain on both sides. But they’d healed quickly by just restoring everything back to normalcy, but that begged the question…why had it caused them so much pain in the first place?

What exactly made it so hard for these two…close friends…to be apart?

John thought about that night at the pool, how easily he was willing to give up his life for the chance to let Sherlock live. He’d grabbed Moriarty without a second thought after forming the plan, knowing there was a huge chance that he would be blown up as soon as Sherlock escaped. There had been no question. Of course he would die for Sherlock Holmes. He would have died for anyone.

Wouldn’t he?

John swallowed, looking Sherlock straight in the eye again. “I don’t know.”

Sherlock mirrored his swallow, recognizing that the air was growing dense between them. For a crystalline second, The Line that everyone assumed they’d crossed, The Line that they’d never discussed, was unmistakably foggy and unclear.

Sherlock broke away first. “You have work in a few hours.”

John threw the crusts of the toast onto his plate. “Right. I guess I’d better get some sleep, then. You should, too.”

“I don’t need sleep. I’m thinking.”

“It might do you good. You were awake when I woke up. You must have been bored.”

“A bit, yes,” Sherlock said, admitting softly, “but actually…I was worried. About you.”

John didn’t hear it; he’d already made his way out of the kitchen and was on his way to his bedroom when a wholly unfamiliar wheezing sound pierced the room.

And out of nowhere, a large, blue police box materialized in the middle of the parlor.

“John.” Sherlock called, controlling his voice through the confusion. “John. John. John.”

He had been watching the blue box appear, dumbfounded, when Sherlock’s voice got through to him. He ran around the box, giving the unbelievable thing a wide berth, and ran right to Sherlock. “Sherlock—what is that thing?”

Sherlock shook his head, not removing his eyes from the still-wheezing box, and slid his hand down John’s arm to take his hand.

John took his hand without thinking about it. For some strange reason, the men felt safer with a hand to hold.

The box stopped, smoking slightly, and after a second, an odd-looking man peered his head out of the door with a sheepish smile. “I made it—the old girl’s been a bit rusty today, but this is brilliant. Oh! Hello!” he addressed the pair. “How’re you two? How’s Hamish?”

“What?”

“What day is it?”

“What?” John repeated while Sherlock simultaneously said, “Tuesday, November the 4th.”

The Doctor’s eyes widened. “Year?”

“2013.”

“Oh. Forget I said that. Forget I said anything. Do you remember—erm—” he coughed awkwardly into his hand and wiping it on his tweed jacket. Then he offered his hand to the men. “Hello. I’m the Doctor.”

John’s mouth flapped open and closed a few times. “What? What the—how did you—box?”

Sherlock’s mind was reeling. “Your box. It materialized out of thin air. Explain.”

“Oh, this?” the Doctor stroked the side of the machine. “This is the TARDIS. Time And Relative Dimension In Space. It can travel anywhere in space and time. And it’s a sexy thing, too.”

“Time machine. You’re a time traveler.” Sherlock looked over his clothes, categorizing all the data and letting it loose in a string of theories. “That jacket was made in London in 1836, yet it shows no signs of its age. Bow tie—Chinese silk. And by the outline of it you can see through your pocket, you have a weapon on you, but not a traditional weapon—foreign technology.”

The Doctor giggled. “Brilliant, Mr. Holmes! What can you deduce from all that?”

“To put it colloquially, you’re not from around here, are you?”

“Oh, I pop in here and there,” the Doctor said, leaving the TARDIS and rummaging through the pantry for biscuits. “John, could you put the kettle on?”

“Wha—how do you know my name?” John shook himself from his shock. “Who the hell are you? What are you doing here? And how the hell did you get in our flat???”

The Doctor stayed frozen at the spot before slowly turning to John and giving him a level look. “John Hamish Watson. I know you don’t believe it, but you and I are going to be friends. In the future. You have to trust me.”

“I think you’re a loony,” he said, crossing his arms. “Get out of our home.”

“John,” Sherlock warned him, “I think he might be telling the truth.”

The Doctor pulled out a tin of Jammy Dodgers. “I am indeed. John Hamish Watson, ex-Army Doctor—your favorite food is blackberry jam on toast, you had a pet turtle when you were little until your sister Harry let it free when you were eight, and you once got so blindingly drunk in Sussex one night that you woke up in the middle of a parking lot with an airbrushed butterfly tattoo on your forearm.”

John blinked a few times in surprise. “Okay,” he said, deciding to surrender to this strange man with no eyebrows.

The Doctor turned his gaze to Sherlock. “Do you need convincing?”

Sherlock shook his head. “I believe you. But you must explain, now, before I get bored with your parlor tricks.”

“Fair enough. I’m an alien from outer space, I’m over a thousand years old, I have two hearts—”

“Which accounts for the odd pulse I detected on your neck,” Sherlock breathed, impressed. “Binary vascular system.”

“Pretty cool, eh?” the Doctor grinned. “That blue box is my time machine, and I’ve been nearly everywhere in the universe enough times for them to have a sign put up in my honor.”

“Really?”

“Well, the signs usually say something along the lines of, ‘Don’t Ever Let the Doctor In Here,’ but no press is bad press, so…” He sighed deeply and looked at Sherlock. “In your future, years from now, I will meet you for the first time. We happen to be good friends. But I can’t wait around for you to trust that, so bear with me here. Just pretend I’m a regular client, coming with a case for you.”

Sherlock clicked his teeth in excitement. “You’re an alien from outer space and you have a case that only I can solve, so you actually traveled through time and space to seek me and utilize my skills?”

The Doctor grumbled. “Don’t flatter yourself, okay, I happen to be very clever. I just need all the help I can get. I’m…” He coughed. “I’m in over my head here. And I thought you’d understand where I was coming from, but I seem to have gotten the timing of it wrong.”

John got mugs of tea for the three of them and they sat down, with the Doctor facing the pair as they perched on the couch. The ex-Army Doctor of the group still didn’t trust the Doctor Doctor.

The Doctor (of the alien variety) nervously sipped tea. “I travel through time and space. And, since I get pretty lonely, I bring along friends. People who help me see the beauty of a universe I’ve already seen, and people who stop me from…going too far. If you take on this case, you’ll get to travel, too. But I made a huge mistake.”

“You fell in love.”

The Doctor’s jaw dropped open. “I’d forgotten how well you do that. How did you know?”

“Simple, really. It was the first option in the book, after money and power, neither of which you desire since you already have limitless time traveling power and money-making capabilities. You’re married. You confirmed it by smiling when you mentioned your ‘mistake’ and you’ve been absently rubbing your ring finger since you appeared here. You don’t wear a wedding ring because you travel through time, and if you met your wife before she knew you’d been married, you’d have a bit of trouble on your hands.”

“More than a bit—she’s a time traveler, too, only with a lazier trigger finger.”

“I like her already.”

“All right, gents,” John said impatiently. “Let’s get a move on. What is the case?”

“Right—well, my wife was kidnapped by an enemy. I thought she was being kept by a familiar foe in an attempt to bring me down. The universe has been trying to do it for centuries. But this enemy is new, it’s one I don’t know. They haven’t shown their face yet, but they want to control me.”

“Clearly,” Sherlock said. “Killing you is short-sighted to say the least.”

“Thank you!” he exclaimed brightly. “I knew you’d be on my side! Anyway, in order to fight this new enemy, I need brainpower and a strong team. I’m asking for your help.”


	4. Chapter 4

Sherlock peaked his fingertips and closed his eyes to process everything. The Doctor had told them the entire story from top to bottom and explained even more his Time Lord heritage until the consulting detective’s brain was in danger of exploding from too much data.

John spoke first. “Doctor, while I am sorry, truly sorry, to hear about your wife, I don’t think we can help you. We’re not cut out for interstellar adventure or whatever you require. But we wish you the best of luck.”

“John, hush.”

“No, Sherlock, you can’t possibly take this case!” John said defensively. “There is no way you’re ready for this sort of thing.”

“You doubt my mental capabilities?”

“Doubt you? No, Sherlock, I’m bloody worried about you. You’ve just come back from a two-year mission and you’re bruised and battered. You need rest! And you could go off on this case and get yourself vaporized by some alien gun—or worse, erased from existence!”

“Certainly not,” Sherlock frowned. “You would come with me.”

“I would not.”

“Yes, you would,” the Doctor assured him, crossing his arms. “You’re worried that you’re going to lose someone you care about. You’d do anything to help him.”

“And how exactly do you know that?” John grumbled, matching his crossed arms. “Mr. Time Lord Whatever. Since you seem to know everything and make us humans look so ignorant.”

The Doctor fixed him with one of his infamous glares—the kind that had stopped armies in their tracks. “I’ve lost the one person in the world I care about more than anything, the one person who understood me. You happen to still have that person in your life, Watson.”

He was dangerously close to poking The Line with a stick, and the men from 221B knew it. John tried to save face. “It’s Sherlock’s decision.”

“No, it’s not. It’s the both of yours. Face it, Watson,” the Doctor said angrily, “there isn’t a place in this universe you wouldn’t go for him. Stop pretending you’re not a part of this.”

John stood up off the couch. “I need some air.”

He bounded down the stairs and grabbed his coat. Sherlock made no move to follow, but he opened his eyes after John left. “He’s a bit defensive of me.”

“And you say it isn’t obvious,” the Doctor said, leaning back in his chair.

“Do I? What else do I say?”

The Doctor shook his head. “Spoilers. I’ve said too much. Er…why is he defensive of you?”

Sherlock shrugged. “I don’t suppose you know about the time I faked my death?”

“You’ve told me. In the future. So, yes.” He stretched out of the chair and dunked a biscuit into his tea. “So, this is just after you’ve come home?”

“It’s been two weeks.”

“Well, I suppose it’s no wonder. He’s not usually this angry, from what I know of him—usually he’s all jumpers and tea and jam. It’s just…”

“Right now. I know.” Sherlock fumed. “He’s protective of me now that I’m home. But I can’t imagine why—I’m alive and I can take care of myself.”

“I think we both know you can imagine why.”

Sherlock looked a little rumpled at that. “We’re…friends. Close friends. He cares about me.”

The Doctor decided not to push it any further. “Well, Mr. Holmes—can I count on you for help?”

“Yes. I’ll take the case.” He bit his lip. “Though, I would prefer to take my partner with me. If you could convince him. I don’t think I could go without him.”

The Doctor nodded and got in the TARDIS, replying as he went, “I’ll be back soon—back a bag and prepare for the trip of your life.” He quickly entered the coordinates of the nearest dock, an old haunt of John’s that he happened to know well as a result of knowing him. The TARDIS quickly materialized there, and sure enough, John was sitting on a bench, watching the sunrise.

John didn’t even acknowledge the wheeze of the time machine, keeping his eyes on the horizon. The Doctor walked over, pulling on his suspenders nervously, and sat down next to him. “John, John, John. I’m sorry. You just got him back, I should have known.”

“Known what, exactly? You’re a stranger to us. You don’t know anything. You pop out of nowhere a few hours ago and expect us to believe this fantastic story and run away with you on some journey against powerful aliens. It’s bloody ridiculous.”

“You also know it’s true. But I know it’s not the adventure that’s keeping you. It’s the risk.” He watched as the sun streaked the grey night with rays of blood red. “He took the case. But he doesn’t want to go without you.”

“He can shove off.”

“You don’t want him to. John,” he pleaded, “what do I have to do to make you trust me? In the future, I promise you, we are friends. Good friends. What do I have to say to make you believe it?”

“Say that he’ll survive.”

“He will. He’s there, in the future, too.”

John hesitated. “So, if we go on this case with you, because you’ve met us in the future, there’s no chance that either of us die?”

“Well, it’s all a little wibbly…there might be a paradox or two involved, but the chances are good that we will all be together in the future. But it will be the first time I’ve met you, and the second time you’ve met me.”

“That’s confusing.”

“Timey-wimey,” he said with a small smile. “I need your help, John. Not just because he won’t do it without you—it’s because Sherlock will try and understand where I’m coming from when I say how much I need River back, but he won’t get it. Not yet. Not really. But you understand.”

“Understand what?”

“What it’s like to lose someone you…” The Doctor avoided saying the actual word. “…care about. Deeply. Someone close. I need someone who can understand the emotions going on here and someone who can calm me down. Besides, it’s good to have a doctor on board.”

John’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “You’re the Doctor.”

“Not that kind of doctor. Well, yes. Sometimes. On fifty-three planets, I am registered as a doctor, but on twelve of those, I’m a doctor of philosophy, and on two, I’m a doctor of cheese-making.”

John laughed out loud. “What?”

“It’s the highest art form on Cheddar Planet.”

“There is not a Cheddar Planet.”

“Is, too. Big universe, John. Don’t make him travel it alone.” The Doctor got up off the bench and held the door to the TARDIS wide open. “He’d be lost without his blogger.”

The Doctor’s direct quotation of Sherlock shook John for a moment, and it was the one thing in the end that changed his mind. Maybe it was because it was another piece of evidence that the Doctor knew them, but part of John thought that the reason he’d said it…was because he not only knew that Sherlock had told him that once, but also because that was the first time John realized he never wanted to leave Sherlock.

John bounded into the TARDIS and gasped on entry. “Wha—it’s—how is that???”

“Bigger on the inside, Johnny-boy!” the Doctor grinned. “There’s a great big universe out there, and you’re about to see a slice. Get used to being amazed.”

The Doctor pulled at the console controls while John stood shocked. After a few seconds of motionlessness, he broke into a huge smile and ran around the control room like a child on Christmas morning. “This is fantastic! Are there rooms in here, too?”

“As many as you like, or don’t like. It tends to have a mind of its own, this thing,” the Doctor said affectionately. “Your room’s already here from the first time we met.”

John ran down the corridor to find his room as the Doctor hurriedly reprogrammed his room to have two separate beds replace the king-sized bed that had originally been there.

The TARDIS whirred on and landed in the middle of a messy 221B. John and the Doctor opened the door to find Sherlock trying to cram beakers and bottles into a carpetbag. “John, they won’t fit!” he exclaimed. “Fix it.”

John ran out of the TARDIS. “You’re not going to need those—there’s plenty of stuff in here already. I bet the Doctor has a lab on board.”

“Yeah, I have loads of equipment,” he reassured them. “You’ll just need some clothes. And if you have any Jammy Dodgers, bring them too! I’m running low.”

Sherlock flopped onto the couch. “Dull.”

John rolled his eyes. “I’ll pack for him.”

The Doctor watched John trudge upstairs to grab clothes for Sherlock, whistling as he went. “He is so whipped.”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing. Don’t you want to come in?” he said, ushering the consulting detective into the blue box.

“We’re not all going to fit in that. It can only fit two people, tops,” Sherlock groused, not even looking inside the TARDIS. 

“Then it’s your lucky day, Holmes. You get to be pressed up against Watson all you like,” the Doctor said under his breath.

“Don’t think I didn’t hear that. Why does everyone always assume that John and I are a couple? I am married to my work.”

“Right, of course. Entrez-vous, mon petit cabbage, “ the Doctor said, presenting his time machine to Sherlock. Sherlock choked on his own spit two steps in and ran back out, examining the size of the TARDIS.

“Not possible. This isn’t possible.” He felt for a trick wall on the back of the police box. “It’s bigger on the inside.”

“So it is.”

“That’s not physically possible. Physics itself defies the existence of this box.”

“I’m having a hard time telling if you’re fascinated or terrified.”

Sherlock gulped and ran upstairs. “John. We can’t go with him. His paradoxical machine is going to kill us.”

“It is not going to kill us. Besides, you already said yes to him, and we can’t very well refuse him now. We have to save his wife and baby.”

“But John,” he pleaded, “it’s bigger on the inside. There’s no way that box can exist.”

“You’re going to have a rough time on this trip, old boy, if you keep discounting everything that doesn’t fit into the logical parameters of your mind,” the Doctor shouted after them. “John! Bring the Dodgers!”

John shrugged at Sherlock and handed him a bag. “Here. There wasn’t room for shoes, but the ones you’re wearing are fine. Bring your coat and your scarf.”

Sherlock’s eyes widened. “Are we really doing this?”

“Traveling through time and space on a suicide mission to save an alien’s family from some powerful, mysterious enemy?” John bit his lip to keep from laughing. “It was your idea.”

He began to walk down the steps to the living room when Sherlock called out softly, “I’m sorry.”

He turned around. “What for?”

“You didn’t want to go.” Sherlock looked a little panicked. “We don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

John grinned. “Are you just saying that because you’re scared of the TARDIS?”

Sherlock denied it too quickly. “I’m not scared.”

“You bloody well are. And frankly, it’s adorable.” John put a comforting hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. “The box won’t hurt you. Come on, we’re going on an adventure. Like in the Hobbit. It’ll be fun, I suppose.”

Sherlock just stared at him like he was insane. John ignored the look and gave him an encouraging smile. “The game is on!”

The taller man rolled his eyes and they walked downstairs together, finding the Doctor gaily brandishing a flashy metal thing with a green light and sporting a fez. “Are we ready?”   
“Where’d you get the fez?”

“My collection. Geronimo!!!!” he shouted, bounding inside the TARDIS and getting started on piloting the machine away. John and Sherlock shrugged at each other, took a deep breath, and joined him inside the blue box.

And they were off.


	5. Chapter 5

It was like clockwork, really.  The Doctor should have expected that he was being watched.

            He piloted the TARDIS to the old starship where Kovarian and the Silence had first taken Amy and Melody, the first time he’d gone to war.  It was a good place to start looking, and Sherlock could start collecting data and filling in the gaps.  Together, the three of them could make a plan to save River.

            The TARDIS wheezed its way into landing on the empty platform of the main deck.  The ship was empty and alone, cruising through space like a piece of junk.  A relic of a bygone war.

            The silence was eerie, but the Doctor tried to shatter it with his ineffable enthusiasm, which he’d found was a wonderful coping mechanism.  “Welcome to space, gents!  Granted, this part isn’t particularly brilliant—it’s just an old spaceship.  But still, look at those stars!”

            John and Sherlock exited the TARDIS with him, and John gasped at the strength of the starlight.  “They don’t look like that back home.”

            “Nothing ever really does.  Come on, I need your expertise.  Let’s do what you always do and look for clues!” the Doctor said, sprinting around the main deck.  “This ship used to belong to the Silence, the order I told you about.  They used Kovarian as their mouthpiece, and since Kovarian is still involved, this is as good a place as any to start.”

            “What should we be looking for?” John asked.

            “Whatever you think is important.  I’m going to the control room and I’ll try and sonic the lights back on.  It’s a bit dark in here.”  They watched the Doctor go with a buzz of green light from the sonic screwdriver in his wake.

            “Right, well,” John said after awhile.  “Clues.  Shall we?”

            Sherlock nodded absently, cataloguing every bit of data he could about the ship.  He kicked around a few metal heads on the floor.  “Robots.  Fascinating.”  He examined one of the dusty heads and pried it apart, with effort, to look at the alien tech.  When it opened, a putrid smell escape and out flopped a grey, jelly-like substance.

            “Sherlock, what is that thing?  It smells foul!”

            “Human brain,” he said immediately.  “Removed from a human being and put into a robot—oh, that’s marvelous.  I wonder what for.”

            “Marvelous?  Having your brain in a metal head?  I don’t think so.  Put that thing back before it stinks up the whole ship!”

            Sherlock ignored him and put on a pair of gloves to play with the dead brain.

            “Sherlock, seriously.  We’re on a case.”

            “Dull.”

            “The Doctor needs our help.”

            Sherlock rolled his eyes.

            John let out a sigh and walked away from the entertained detective, taking a closer look at the huge window on the main deck.  Outside, billions of stars, brighter than he’d ever seen them, streaked across the cosmos.  It was unreal.

            Sherlock noticed when John walked away and felt strange being left behind, so he walked away from the brain and took off the gloves, coming to stand next to him.

            “It’s…wow.  Can you believe how many stars there are out there?”

            “Yes.”

            John huffed and pointed to the right.  “That’s Cassiopeia, right there.”

            “Is that a constellation?”

            “Yeah, my dad got me a book of them when I was a kid.  Though I suppose you wouldn’t know any,” he joked.  “Deleting the solar system and all that.”

            “Indeed.”  Sherlock paused.  “Show me some more.”

            “Really?  Won’t that clog up your mind palace?”

            “Irrelevant.  I’ll delete it later.”

            “Brilliant.  Erm…”   John looked at the burning night sky, searching for a familiar shape.  “Cepheus the King should be nearby, but I can’t tell.  It’s too different.  There are too many.”

            Sherlock nodded.  “Well, perhaps we should make some of our own.”

            John smiled.  “Sure.  Those six, right there?  That’s the TARDIS.”

            “That cluster, over there,” Sherlock said in an official-sounding voice.  “That’s Anderson’s nose.”

            “Ha!  Er, that’s the wildly bright and well-known Mrs. Hudson’s Tea Cozy.”

            “Mycroft’s Umbrella, over there.”

            “There’s the smiley face on our wall at 221B.”

            Sherlock gazed at the plethora of stars, not bothering to take them in as data.  But he searched for something that would make John laugh, or just maybe…  He cleared his throat.  “Those two groups of stars, over there.  The ones that glow orange”

            John nodded.  “I see them.”

            “John’s Eyes.”  Sherlock smiled warmly.  “Look, now you have a constellation all to yourself.”

            John stared at the new constellation with his own eyes, and then looked at Sherlock.

            He noticed.  “What?”

            “Er…nothing.  Just…nothing, forget it.”

            “All right.”

            John was a little miffed that he didn’t push to hear more, but it was quickly forgotten.  Something in him was glowing warm and fizzing slightly with excitement.  “Sherlock?”

            “Yes?”  
            “You told the Doctor you wouldn’t go without me.”  
            Sherlock flickered his eyes over to John before resuming his mask of indifference.  “Yes.”  
            “Why?”

            “What do you mean, why?  We’re friends.”

            “You could have gone alone.”

            “John…” He sighed.  He didn’t know how best to do this.  “I know what you’re trying to get me to say.  It’s a bit obvious.”

            “I don’t think it is.”

            “Please, stop.  Before you embarrass yourself.”

            John was visibly hurt by that.  Sherlock pretended not to notice and continued his silent vigil by the stars, feeling guiltier each second that went by as John walked away from him, shaking his head.

            Sherlock resisted the urge to apologize.  He’d seen this coming for so long, and he was—well, terrified.  Terrified of something he wasn’t ready to admit.

            Things were so much simpler when there was just the unspoken agreement that they weren’t going to live without each other.  He’d assumed, after Baskerville, that neither man had to express how deeply they cared about each other.  _Other_ people did that, with grand gestures and meaningless words.  He’d thought that John didn’t need to hear them and wouldn’t ask for them.

            Sighing, he strode away from the taunting stars, feeling the John’s Eyes were watching him go, even if John himself was already gone.

            He walked an elaborate staircase to a room of screens, pulling out his microscope to look at fingerprints and dust, when a screen crackled to life and a toad-like woman appeared on it.

            “Ohhhh,” she smiled smarmily.  “I knew he’d pick you.  He was sure that the Doctor would ask you.”

            Sherlock blinked.  Eye-patch, but not for medical reasons—aesthetic? Technological?  A bit of green sludge on the corner of her mouth—alien food.  He needed to do more research on this expanding universe.  “Kovarian.  I haven’t had the pleasure.”

            “Oh, you will, Mr. Holmes.  Your friend, the Doctor, isn’t as clever as he once was.  Last time, he amassed an army, but this time, he’s going for brains.  How sweet.  It sounds like it could even work, in a fairy tale.  But this isn’t a fairy tale, Mr. Holmes.”  She grinned through yellow teeth.  “This is his nightmare.  And it’s about to be yours, too.”

            “You’re not employed by the Silence anymore.  You have a new boss.  The Doctor said you were part of a new network, run by someone who collects people and uses them in games for power.”

            “You’re not deducing me, Mr. Holmes.  I’ve been warned of what you can do, and I’m not giving anything away.”

            He smiled.  “You already have.  Thought I’m sure you didn’t mean it, Kovarian.  What a shame, too—Jimmy so does love to skin his minions when they fail him.”

            She blanched.  “How did you—”

            “Luckiest guess in the universe.  Never would have gotten it if it weren’t for you, so thank you.”

            She screamed, but her screen was cut off by some outside force.  There was a minute of silence, and suddenly the screen came back on, and a familiar, placid smile filled the screen.

            “Hello, dear.  Missed me, have you?”

            Sherlock lunged at the screen.  “You bastard.  How the _hell_ did you survive???”

            The screen laughed at him.  “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.  I would so love to hear how you guessed it was me, too.”

            Sherlock gulped.  It was useless to argue with the madman.  “I had friends in high places.  Or, rather, mortuaries.”

            “Molly Hooper helped you.  Obvious.  Boooooring,” the mouth said.  “My escape is at least a little cooler.”

            “Do tell.  Wait, let me guess—you’re an alien, too.”

            “Nothing as cool as a Time Lord, like your new boyfriend.  Just a simple creature with regenerative abilities.  But the blood I got on my Westwood after that—I never got it out.  It was a pity.”  Moriarty’s face pouted on the screen.  “I do so love a good cliché—they make the game more fun—so I’ll even give you the whole spiel that the villain gives the hero.  I’m not a little Earthling like you, but I was grounded in humanoid form by my daddy.  He was tired of my games back home.  But you don’t need to worry—I took care of ol’ Pa.  And boy, if you thought taking out my entire network for two years on Earth was hard work, imagine how much bigger my universal web is.”

            “You have contacts all over the universe.  That’s why you want the Doctor—you don’t have time travel.”

            “Don’t be obvious,” Jim scowled.  “The whole idea of a villain needing power, that’s just silly.  No, I told you in London.  I like to have fun.  I like games.  And the universe is my playground.  I just happen to like challenging people who are almost as clever as me.  The Doctor will fight me for his family, and he will lose.  And then, when he’s broken, I get to use him as a toy.  It’ll be fun—if River’s belly is any indication, he is a riot in bed.”

            Sherlock fought the impulse to throw up.  “Where are you keeping her?”

            “Somewhere horrible.”

            “Come on, Moriarty, one final game.  You expected the Doctor would find me, and you planned this game.  You know this is a world I don’t know.  The game isn’t fun unless I get clues.”

            “Between you and the Doctor, you’ll be able to figure it out.  You’re both so cute and smart, it won’t take long.  You won’t even need your little pet.  Speaking of which,” he said with a snide smile, “where is the worthless one?”

            Sherlock froze.  “John.”

            “Has anyone ever told you that you talk too much?” Moriarty said.  “I wonder what John’s been up to all this time.  Oh, wait—I happen to know.  I’d go fetch that brain you were playing with now, if I were you.”

            Sherlock bolted out of the screen room as Moriarty’s laughter echoed through the hall.  “Bye, bye, Sherly—we’ll see each other soon.  Just ditch your soldier boy and come play!”

            “John!” he yelled, throwing himself down the stairs and onto the main deck.  “JOHN!  John, where are you?  Get away from the robots, they’re—”

            His warnings were met with a loud scream, and he ran all the faster to find John on the floor, battling a metal head.  The robotic head opened up and chomped its metal jaws dangerously close to John’s face as wire tendrils wrapped themselves around his body and neck.

            He rushed to John’s struggling form, pulling at the metal head.  “Doctor!” he cried.  “ _Doctor, we need help!_ ”

            “Get—this—sodding—thing—off!” groaned John, hissing as one of the edges of the jaws nicked him across the cheekbone.  “Sherlock—”

            “I know, I’m working on it!!!” he yelled, pulling at the wires that slapped him away.  One hit him with such force that it knocked him halfway back to the TARDIS.  The wires tightened on John’s body, slithering around his neck and constricting it until John gasped.  His face was growing redder each second.  “Sh—Sh—”

            Sherlock got up and ran back to John until a dismembered robotic boy seized him clumsily by the shoulders and tried to wrench his head off.  “John, just hold on!  _DOCTOR!!!_ ”

            “OI!” a familiar voice called, and the Doctor swooped in from the flight deck and onto the platform, sonicing the robots with a high-frequency pitch that made Sherlock wince in pain.  He kept battling his robot.  “Sherlock, are you—”

            “Help John!  He’s _dying_!” Sherlock said, trying to box the body away.

            The Doctor nodded and pointed his screwdriver at the head, turning it off in a matter of seconds, and got to pulling the wire from John’s throat.  “John, John, are you okay?  Can you hear me?”

            The soldier lay still, eyes rolled back into his head.  The high buzz of the sonic must have done its work on the robot body, because it fell to the floor after cringing from the noise.

            Sherlock took one moment to look at the sparking machinery of the robot before running to the Doctor’s side.  “Is he all right?”

            He used his sonic to determine the vital signs.  “Alive.  Unconscious—he’s fine.”

            “The robot—it wanted his head.  It was choking him.”

            “Cybermen, Sherlock.  They need human brains to function, and a dead one’s machinery will do anything to get fresh meat, so to speak.”  The Doctor hefted one side of John and got Sherlock to carry his legs.  “Come on, get him into the TARDIS.” 


	6. Chapter 6

“James Moriarty,” the Doctor breathed from his seat in the console room.  “He sounds like a horrible little spider.  And he’s the one behind your scandal?”

            “Yes—he goes around the universe, looking for games to play with people he deems worthy.  It was my turn then, but now it seems like it’s yours.  He wants you to play with him and lose, so he can use you.”

            “Well, we’ll see about that,” the Doctor said with a glare.  “And he didn’t tell you where he was hiding River?”

            “He said we’d be able to figure it out.  It can’t be that difficult if we can.  Moriarty likes games that expose weaknesses,” Sherlock pointed out.  “His favorite game is exploiting those pressure points.  He already took River and your unborn child, so we know that he knows your weakness.  Even if it is a bit obvious.”

            “Thanks.”

            “Don’t mention it.  Actually—that’s it!” Sherlock got excited.  “River’s the obvious bit, but Moriarty knows better than to just use her.  It’s too easy.  Not his style.  And too clean.”

            “So?”

            “So he wants to add more trouble into the mix.  He wants to make things interesting.  What would make you and River more interesting to him?  Shh—don’t say anything!  I’m working.”  Sherlock took a deep breath and collected his thoughts.  “He wants to make a mess.  He wants to break you.  He also wants to hit your weak points, which usually deal with your companions.  Doctor, have you ever had a companion that it would break you to lose, besides River?”

            “All of my companions have broken me in their own ways.  Curse of the Time Lords,” he said darkly.  “Could he have brought back the Ponds???”

            “Who’re the Ponds?”

            “Old companions—River’s parents.”

            Sherlock ignored the strangeness of that comment and shook his head.  “If they’re parents, it won’t be any more fun than usual.  He has the family angle worked out.”

            The Doctor thought for a moment.  Then he swallowed.  “Moriarty has her in another universe—I know that much.  River’s vitals don’t show up anywhere in this universe, and she would have shown up no matter how hidden she was.  And if what you say is true, and Moriarty took her somewhere with an extra element of heartbreak, just to make a mess of me…”

            “Doctor.”

            He bounded out of his seat and starting working the console.  “I know exactly where Moriarty took her.  Where he’s hiding.”

            “Where?”

            “A different universe—one with a different life I could have lived.” He sighed.  “He took her to Pete’s World.”

            Sherlock’s eyebrows furrowed.  “Pete’s World?”

            “Long before I met River, there was someone else.  A woman from Earth—a really beautiful, brilliant girl.  She was selfless, and funny, and she…made me better.  It was just after the Time War on my home planet, and she cooled down my anger and helped me let go.”

            “What happened to her?”

            “She was lost.  I thought I could never see her again, so I gave her a copy of me.  She deserved to have a life with the man she loved, but it just couldn’t be me.  But it could be him.  And oh, Moriarty would just love this.  He would adore this: taking me to a universe to rescue my wife when the first woman I ever lo—” He coughed.  Even after centuries, he couldn’t bring himself to finish that sentence.  It hurt too much.  “He wants me to be there, torn between two romances.”

            “Do you still…have feelings for her?” Sherlock grimaced at his sentimental wording.

            “Not those kind.  I’ll always care for her, but I’m married to River.  Rose—that was her name,” he said with a smile.  “Rose was everything to me, but she was lost.  I learned to cope a long time ago, and she had a life without me.  It ended up fine in the end, but if we have to see each other now.”  He sighed.  “This is connected to Rose, I just know it.  He has universal spies, so he’s figured out Bad Wolf by now and traced it to her.”

            “And this Rose is in an alternate universe?”

            “A parallel world.”  He nodded.  “And if Moriarty broke through time and space to get there, this isn’t just about my family.  This is about the entire universe disintegrating.  Oh, what a game he’s made!”  He prepared the TARDIS to find the hole that Moriarty had created.  “This is going to be a bumpy ride.  Go check on John.  See if he’s all right.”

            Sherlock left the room with his head reeling and walked through the long corridor to the sick bay, where John lay unconscious still.

            Things softly beeped and whirred in the blinding white room.  John was lying on one of the beds, looking small and very vulnerable under the white sheets.  Sherlock took one glance at him and immediately felt overwhelming guilt mixed with relief.  If he’d only responded more kindly when John had asked him.  He could have kept John safe if they were together.  If he’d only left the stupid Cyberman alone.  If only.

            He couldn’t adequately express how relieved he was that the Doctor had saved him.  He honestly had no idea what he would have done if John had died.  Now he didn’t have to find out.

            John stirred.  “Shrrrlmf.”

            Sherlock let out the breath he’d been holding.  “John.  Is that your attempt at saying my name?”

            “Piss off.”  The groggy soldier woke up and blinked at the room around him.  “Not dead, am I?  Felt like I was for a moment there.”

            “To me, as well.”  He sat down by his bedside.  “You nearly did die.  The Cyberman’s head was choking you.”  He shook his head.  “I’m sorry.  It’s my fault.  If I’d made you stay with me.”

            “Oh, you git.  It wasn’t your fault.  You all right, then?”

            “Fine.”

            The men stared at each other in stony silence until Sherlock quietly scooted closer, pressing a gentle and cool hand to the angry bruises on John’s neck.  “Please,” he whispered, “don’t do that to me.  Not again.  If something happened to you, I don’t—I honestly—”

            “Hey, hey,” John soothed him, petting his hand.  “It’s all right.  I’m fine.”

            “I’m going to make the Doctor send you home.  You need to rest after this, and I don’t want you in any more danger.”

            “What, and leave you in danger with him?  As you two fools go off to some crazy world?  Not bloody likely—I may not be clever, but I can help you two where common sense is involved.  Try and stop me from staying, I dare you.”

            Sherlock smiled.  “We can argue about this later.”

            “Or you could just let it go.  I’m staying.  You’re not going off on your own.”

            “You’re too stubborn for your own good.”

            “Calling the kettle black, mate.”

            The two friends laughed, with John wheezing and wincing at the pain in his throat, and when they quieted down, Sherlock absently grazed the cut on John’s cheek.  “That robot really got you there.”

            “It’ll heal soon.  Trust me, I’m a doctor.”

            Sherlock smiled again and let his fingers linger on the scar.  John continued looking straight at him.

            He pulled away after he realized what he was doing.  “I’m glad you survived.  I truly don’t know what I’d do without my blogger.”

            John nodded.  “Right.  And I’d be lost without my…annoying flatmate.”

            “Boys!” the Doctor called from the control room.  “Quit your flirting and get here right now!  We need to debrief on Pete’s World!”

            “Pete’s World?” John asked.

            Sherlock just shook his head.  “We have to catch you up on a lot.”


	7. Chapter 7

A wail sounded through the night, piercing everyone in the house’s ears.  Not that the wailing was anything new.

            She grumbled and pulled off her sleep mask.  “It’s your turn,” she drowsily ordered her husband, who faked being asleep still.  She saw right through it and smacked him on the shoulder.  “Oi.  I know you’re awake.”

            “Wha—oh, hello, darling,” he said.  “ G’morning…is that our son keeping us awake at all hours?”

            “It’s your turn.”

            “Rose, I got him last time.”

            “That was yesterday.  I got him an hour ago.”

            He grumbled, stretched, and swung his legs over the bed.  “You owe me a snog.”

            “I don’t owe you nothin’.  Hop to it,” she giggled, smacking him on the backside.  “And hurry back.”

            He grinned cheekily at her and left the room for the nursery to fetch their infant son.  Rose watched him go, feeling her wide smile spread all over her body, deep in her heart.

            It really couldn’t be much better.  Rose got off the bed as well and went to the desk, watching the tiny piece of TARDIS coral bloom absurdly slowly.  It wouldn’t be ready for another five years, but even the smallest chance of getting to travel again was the most beautiful dream she had left.

            Besides the traveling, however, Rose Tyler had literally everything she could possibly ask for.  She’d thought her world was over when she was banished here, but she’d made a home for herself.  Her father was alive and married to her mother, and Pete and Jackie couldn’t be happier.  She had a little brother and a calling.  She wasn’t just a shop girl anymore—she was one of the foremost alien hunters and experts at Torchwood.

            The greatest expert, of course, was her husband John.  They’d decided to call him John Smith in public, keeping with his pseudonym, but after their marriage, he’d switched it to John Tyler.  “It sounds spiffier,” he’d told her with a loving smile.

            Rose had been so worried, in secret, that she wouldn’t be able to love John the way she loved the Doctor.  Sure, they looked exactly the same and had the same sort of memories, but there was an element to the Metacrisis Doctor that wasn’t the same.  It was darker, more emotional, and much more frightening.  But Rose had been patient and helped him turn from the battle-born alien into the caring and loving man she could claim as her husband, with pride.

            They’d made a good life together.  She could honestly say she loved him, and not just because he was a duplicate of the Doctor.  She loved John Tyler for all the human nuances that differentiated him from his Time Lord self, and she was grateful for the chance she’d gotten to be with him for the rest of her life.  And now they had a proper family.

            She missed the traveling, and she knew he itched for it.  It was something insatiable in him—he worked as a professor at Oxford and taught night classes at Cambridge while leading the Torchwood team and even correcting physics textbooks “for fun” just to keep moving.  He had to keep busy to forget the fact that they were both grounded until the TARDIS coral grew, and while it made schedules tough, they’d made it through.  Together.

            She still called him the Doctor.  Most of her family and friends did, despite the birth certificate and passport that addressed him as John.  Some things never go away.

            He walked in after a few minutes, magically rocking their son to sleep almost immediately, and followed Rose’s gaze.  “Five more years, Rose.  We can take Bo with us and show him castles and knights and the Calderon Galaxy.”

            She grinned and turned to him.  “I love you.”

            He took her hands in his and kissed her forehead.  “And I love you.  Do you know how liberating it is to say it?  I could say it every day.”

            “You _do_ say it every day.  As loudly as possible,” she laughed.

            As if to prove her wrong, he pressed a warm kiss to each temple and whispered as softly as possible, “I love you, I love you, I love you…”

            “You’re completely daft, Doctor.”

            “At least I’m still foxy.”

            “We’ll see about that, luv,” she said, teasing the streaks of grey already lining his hairline.  “We’re getting older.  My eyes are starting to crinkle at the edges.”

            “They always do that,” he insisted, examining her face.  “When you laugh.”

            “You know what I mean.  We’re getting older.  I’m turning thirty in a few months.”

            “Big deal.  I was still in primary school when I was thirty.”

            “Shut up.”

            “ _You_ shut up.”  She sighed, still laughing.  “I only mean…I’m worried.  I want to make sure this is okay for you, since the coral probably won’t be ready for a long time, if ever…and you’re giving up all this adventure just to live day-to-day life with me.”

            He shook his head.  “I chose a long time ago that this is the life I want to have.  And between you and me, the whole running-for-your-life thing was getting pretty boring.  Terribly tiring.”

            “Liar.”

            “Rose, please just believe me when I say that I might miss it, just like you do, but you happen to be my biggest adventure.  Going to the grocery store and making sure I get enough packages of pasta is a daunting mission indeed.”

            She playfully smacked his upper arm and slid back into bed, preparing for a long day of paperwork at Torchwood tomorrow.  “Remind me to drop Bo off at Jackie’s.”

            “I wrote it down on a Post-It for you.  Did you know I invented the Post-It?”

            “Get out!  You did _not_.”

            “I did to.  I did a lot of fun things when you weren’t with me in the TARDIS.  I wrote the song ‘Fly Me to the Moon’.”

            “I refuse to believe this.”

            “You should—I wrote it for you.”

            She smiled warmly and thanked him with a kiss.  “Have I ever told you how lucky I am that I landed a bloke like you?”

            “Oh, go on.”

            The couple in wedded bliss giggled and quickly dozed off, thinking that the distance grinding sound they heard was only the dreamy echo of the TARDIS in their memories.

  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

            “Rose…” the Doctor said from downstairs in the kitchen.  “Rose, could you come down here for a moment?”

            She’d been finishing her morning routine upstairs, braiding her hair into two pigtails and grabbing Bo from his play-mat on the floor.  Their son had been cooing at the star mobile that his father had made for him before he was born.  “Come on, Bo, let’s go see what your daddy destroyed this time,” she said soothingly, picking him up and walking him down the stairs on her hip.

            What she saw in the kitchen made her jaw drop.

            A frenetic young man in a bowtie, tweed jacket, and apron was whirling around their kitchen and juggling two frying pans, one with simmering chocolate and the other with a full array of bacon.  On their countertop, a slim man with dark curly hair and a blue scarf was sitting cross-legged with his hands folded under his chin.  He almost looked like he was meditating, or ignoring the ruckus the energetic man was making.  Beside him, a familiar-looking man in a black leather jacket was shifting his weight from foot to foot, and her husband was watching them all with wide, horrified eyes.

            Most surprising of all, in the living room a few yards away, almost glowing in the rays of morning sun, was a very familiar blue box.

            “Doctor?” she asked her husband, stepping back to protect Bo.

            Unbelievably, three faces turned to look at her—the Doctor in his trainers and trench coat, the wild cook, and the man in the leather jacket.

            The cook turned from his bacon and chocolate and faced Rose, and the only sound in the room was the simmering stove as he broke into a slow but enormous smile.  “Rose.”

            Something about him struck a chord in her, something in the way he said her name.  It sounded like he knew her, and while she knew she’d never seen him before in her life, there was something about the grey-green of his eyes, and how soft and sad they looked.  Too old for a young face.

            A smile crept onto her face, disbelieving and incandescent, and she knew exactly who it was.

            “It’s you.”  She laughed.  “Blimey, it’s you!”

            He opened his arms to her, despite the greasy apron.  “Rose Tyler, Defender of the Earth.  I’ve come home.”

            She gave Bo to her husband and ran to him with him a rib-crunching hug, breathing in the familiar scent of…whatever time and space smelled like.  Somehow old and new, and completely safe.  “Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, _Doctor_!”  She pulled away for just a second to examine him, running fingers through his hair, taking in the fact that he had no eyebrows at this point, tugging on his ears and re-learning this new smile.  “You’ve changed.  You need a haircut.”

            “No, my hair’s cool this way,” he argued before hugging her tightly again.  “Brilliant, brilliant Rose.  I’ve missed you!”

            The other Doctor cleared his throat.  “Oi.  Big shot.  Let go of my wife.”

            The tweed-jacket Doctor was unfazed, waving to his human counterpart.  “Oh, hello, Handy!  You got married!  And you got granite countertops!  I love granite!  Did I ever tell you about the time I worked on Apuciopuch when they were making the Granite Hotel?  I developed a healthy appreciation for granite that week.”

            Rose laughed out loud, buzzing on the high of the moment.  None of it really made any sense, but she didn’t want it to.  She turned to notice the man in the leather jacket.  “Dr. Watson!”

            He recognized her with surprise.  “Rose Tyler!  You’re the Rose we’re here for?”

            “Here for?” the trench-coat Doctor said with a protective growl.

            “Doctor,” Rose said, trying to calm them all down.  John and the two Doctors all simultaneously said yes.

            “Now I have a headache,” Sherlock whined.

            Rose shook her head, looking to her husband.  “John, then.”

            John Watson and the trench-coat Doctor both answered her, eliciting more groans from them all.

            “Well, what am I supposed to call you all?” she complained.  “We have three Doctors, two Johns, and one new bloke!”  
            Sherlock extended a hand to her.  “The name’s Sherlock Holmes.”

            “Not _the_ Sherlock Holmes?  As in, Arthur Conan Doyle’s?”

            “Arthur Conan Doyle?”

            “Spoilers, Rose,” the tweed-coat Doctor warned her.

            “Spoilers?” repeated the human Doctor.  “A woman I met at the Library used to say that.  Have you met her yet?”

            “Handy, you have _no_ idea.”

            “Sorry, but what exactly is going on?” John whinged, clutching at his temples.  “How exactly does everyone know each other?”

            They all remained silent for a moment.

            Sherlock spoke first.  “Well, no one seems to want to explain themselves, so I’ll do it all for you.  The man in the tweed jacket is the real, Time Lord Doctor.  We came by the TARDIS through a hole in the fabric of time and space originally made by our adversary, Jim Moriarty, who has led us on a sick wild goose chase through the universe to rescue the Doctor’s wife and child.  No, not _you_ ,” he said, shaking his head as the human Doctor clutched Rose and Bo protectively.  “The Doctor met and married someone else about a hundred years after leaving Rose in Pete’s World.  We believe that part of our enemy’s game involves the Doctor’s previous attachment to Rose and we’ve come to take preemptive action while searching for his wife.  You’re Rose Tyler, you’re 29 and you’ve been married to the human copy of the Doctor for either 4 or 5 years—oh, it’s been five, you blinked when I said five—and you have a complicated relationship with both Doctors since you feel like you left things in the open when the alien Doctor left you, but you’re worried what your husband thinks of you for thinking so, or else you wouldn’t be holding his hand so tightly right now.  You know John because you went to him before you traveled with the Doctor, probably for something negligible like a cold or a sore throat, and he asked you out on a date after that.  You went out for coffee—no, drinks—but it fizzled out after one date due to…age difference.  Which meant that there must have been a significant one.  You were 18, then, so legal but only barely.  It’s why you called him Dr. Watson but happened to recognize him after one glance—you wouldn’t have recognized a doctor you met once when he was on call, but you don’t feel comfortable enough calling him John after only one date.”

            Everyone blinked in surprise.  “Blimey, is he always like that?” Rose whispered.

            John suggested they come up with better names to address each other with.

            “Well, Sherlock’s Sherlock,” the tweed-Doctor decided, “and John Watson is John, and Rose is Rose.  That leaves us Doctors, eh, old chap?” He offered a high five to the human Doctor, who refused him.  “Come on, Handy!”

            “You’re not calling me ‘Handy’.”

            “How about 10 and 11?  You’re the 10th version of me, and I’m the latest model.”

            Sherlock made the decision for them.  “We don’t have all day, gents.  Let’s try and get past this pedestrian name confusion and move on.  10, Mrs. Tyler, and the child—if you please, sit down.  We have a lot to discuss.”

            “Actually, Sherlock, perhaps we should handle this with a little more sensitivity,” 11 said.  “If you don’t mind, I’m going to talk to Handy—er, 10, and Rose alone.  I owe them a lot of explanations.”  He opened the TARDIS doors with a snap of his fingers.  “How would you two like to be in the TARDIS again?”

            10’s reluctance to go along with the newly returned 11 almost immediately vanished.  “The TARDIS?”

            “Well, it’s been in your living room, mate.  Didn’t you notice?”

            “Obviously, it’s just…we haven’t been in a while.  Clearly.”

            11 smiled.  “Come on.  Don’t you miss it?”

            “I’m not comfortable leaving Bo with these people.”

            “You can trust them, 10—I do.  And if you trust them in the future, why can’t you now?”

            He didn’t want to argue with the logic, and he’d been itching to get in the TARDIS as soon as he’d seen it that morning.  “Come on, Rose.”

            11 ushered them in the TARDIS, which hummed happily to have them back.  “Have fun with Bo, boys!  Be good daddies, eh?”

            Sherlock gulped as the TARDIS disappeared.  “John.  Does he expect us to watch this child?”

            “It would seem so.”

“…I’ll be on the computer.”

“Oh, no, you don’t!” John pulled him by the scarf and brought him dangerously close.  Sherlock could feel his breathing get a little faster, for some reason.  He would have to examine this piece of data later.  “The Doctor left us in charge of Bo, and I’m not going to let you run away.  We’re _both_ watching him.”

Sherlock gulped again.  “Very well.  But if he defecates, I am leaving.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

            Rose took in the new TARDIS interior with a hushed exultation.  “I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed this.  But it looks different.”

            “Things change,” 11 explained, allowing 10 to mess around with the controls.  “Pick a place for us to go, old boy.  You’ve waited long enough.”

            10 grumbled in his general direction, but he picked somewhere and set them off for it.  “How exactly did you get back, then?  And why?  I know what Sherlock said, but I want to hear it from you.”

            “I’d love to tell you, as soon as you stop panicking that I’m here for Rose.  I have no intention of breaking up your marriage—when I left you and Rose here, I wanted you two to find happiness together.  Nothing’s changed.”

            10 looked at his eyes as he said it and nodded.  “All right.  I believe you.  But you’re going to have a tough time explaining it to her.  She thought she’d never see you again.”

            Rose crossed her arms expectantly, waiting for an answer.  “You can say that again, mister.”

            “The universe was closing up again.  I was positive I’d never open it again, even to see you.  I wasn’t lying about that,” 11 continued.  “Someone else has opened a hole, and I need your help to close it and fix everything I’ve messed up.”

            10 rolled his eyes.  “Why are you always getting yourself into trouble?”  
            “Oi, I think you mean ‘we’, 10,” 11 said defensively.  “We are the ones who always get into trouble.  And I’ve really messed up this time.”

            “We’ll help you,” Rose reassured him.  “Both of us.”  And she squeezed 10’s hand to prompt him to agree.

            “Yeah, all right, we’ll help.  I suppose we have no choice in the matter.  Besides, I do love a good mystery,” 10 said.

            11 gave them an appreciative smile.  “I was hoping you’d say that.  But it’s kind of a long story.  D’you mind if we talk about your lives first?  I’d really like to see if there’s some lives I haven’t screwed up yet.”

            10 landed the TARDIS.  “Let’s do it here, shall we?”

            The trio exited the TARDIS onto a grey seascape, with wet sand and craggy rocks outlining the water.

            Rose smiled.  “Bad Wolf Bay.  Of all places, Doctor, honestly.”  She shook her head.  “Sorry, I mean 10.  This is hard to get used to.”

            11 mirrored her smile and ran around the beach.  “It’s really not a very cheery place to be, but I’ll take it.  So, tell me everything!  What happened after I left?”

            “Well, it wasn’t easy,” 10 said, sitting down and stretching against the humming TARDIS.  “We were both pretty mentally damaged after everything that happened.  I mean, I was a genocidal half-alien with some serious brooding problems, in love with a girl still in love with you.  But we learned how to be together, like you two used to be.  Though, I daresay we’re a lot more fun.”

            Rose nodded.  “It was definitely hard at first.  He’s not you, like I said.  But that’s actually a good thing—he’s his own person in so many ways.  And I fell in love with him—you—both of you, I guess, all over again.”

            11’s smile could have rivaled the sun.  “You love him.  That’s good.  I was worried, but I knew it just needed time.  And you got married!”

            Rose flashed the ring at him.  “Yeah, we did.  Big affair, Jackie and Pete controlled it all…but it was really nice.  Very tasteful.  And we did a big tour of the world as a honeymoon, and when we came back I was pregnant with Bo.”

            “Blimey, 10—that’s great, but how do you keep from getting bored?  The coral isn’t grown yet.”

            “Through lots of work—Torchwood, Oxford, teaching, writing, investigating… But you’d be surprised how interesting family life is.  It’s an acquired taste for Time Lords, but I realize the gift you were trying to give us.  You were giving me the life you couldn’t have.” 10 gave him an appreciative look.  “Thanks, for that.”

            “My pleasure.  How’re Jackie and Pete?  What’s Torchwood like?  How is this world different?  What’s Bo like?  Is he brilliant?”

            “We’re happy to answer your questions, Doctor, but don’t you think you need to explain a bit?”  Rose reached out a supportive hand.  “Sherlock said you got married.”

            “Er…right.”  11 sat down in the sand with them, making a strange triangle indeed.  “I suppose I should get to that.”

            “Doctor, what’s wrong?” Rose frowned in concern.  “Sorry, 11.  This is getting weird.”

            “You have new companions,” 10 noted.  “Donna…you had to do a memory wipe, didn’t you?”

            “How’d you guess?”

            “I have your brain, remember?  Same memories.  I knew she couldn’t survive unless you wiped her mind.”

            “Well, I did.  I suppose I should tell you from the beginning, then.”  11 leaned onto his back and looked at the sky, still wearing the greasy apron.  He started to look less happy and more…lost, in a way.  Like a little boy searching the sky for old friends.  “I had to save Donna, so I let her go.  She doesn’t remember me, but she got married and had a nice life.  And there was this whole thing with the Master and her granddad Wilf and drums and a load of rubbish, and I regenerated into this body.”

            “The Master?” 10 said, instantly alert.

            “Don’t worry, he’s gone now.  Not coming back.” 11’s face darkened.  “I sort of went on a farewell tour after that, since I’d absorbed radiation energy and I was dying.  That bloke you met on New Year’s, Rose, all those years ago...”

            Rose gasped.  “I knew it must have been you—I thought about it years later.  There was something about that night that made me sad, and I couldn’t figure out why.  That usually means you’re involved.”

            “Well, then I regenerated into this hot body—”

            “Not as hot as mine.”

            “Definitely debatable.”

            “ _Boys_.”

            “Well, I regenerated into my 11th form and got a new TARDIS look, which is pretty sexy, by the way, and I got new companions—the Ponds!  Brilliant Ponds, Fabulous Amy and Rory.  They traveled with me after I regenerated, and oh, what fun we had.  Amy loved getting into trouble, and Rory loved chasing after her.”

            “Did they fall in love?”

            “ _Did they fall in love_?  They have one of the greatest love stories in the universe!”

            “I thought WE had one of the greatest love stories in the universe,” Rose laughed.

            “Easy, Tyler.  You’re a married woman.  I don’t go around cheating—not on myself.”

            Rose nodded, enjoying the jokes.  “So, Amy and Rory.  What happened to them?”

            11 scowled and looked away.  “They died.”

            Rose felt the uneasy silence settle in, so she put a comforting hand on his shoulder.  “We don’t have to talk about it.  Was there anyone else?”

            “Yes, there was.  That’s sort of the reason why I’m here.”

            “Let’s hear it,” 10 said.  “Sherlock said…you got married.”

            “I did.  You both have to understand, I didn’t think I’d ever…not after Rose.  I’m not exactly cut out for loving people that way.  But she was different.  She was the daughter of the Ponds, to start with…”

            “You _shagged_ your companions’ daughter?”

            “Oi, wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey!” yelled 11.  “She was older by the time I met her.  We’re both time travelers, so we travel in different directions.  When I meet her, I don’t know how much she knows about us.  It’s a constant mystery.”

            It dawned on 10 first.  “River Song.”

            “How did you know?”

            “In the Library.  She already knew me, she expected me.  I just didn’t know how she knew so much about me.  And she knew my name.”

            “ _I_ know your name, 10,” Rose said.  “What’s the big deal with Time Lords and names, anyway?”

            “Well, it’s not really a big deal for you to know mine, since I’m not actually a full Time Lord.  But for Time Lords themselves, they’re completely guarded secrets.  Only a few people get to know them, since some, especially 11’s, could destroy the universe.  So the fact that River knew meant that she was there when 11 revealed it, and that she was close enough to him for him to actually tell her.”

            “What’s supposed to happen, that he tells his name?”

            “Spoilers,” both Doctors said.  Rose groaned. 

            “I already hate that word.” 


	8. Chapter 8

            “John,” Sherlock said in a panicked voice.  “John.  John.  John.”

            John looked up from the pans he was washing.  “What, did he do something terrifying?  Burped or something?”

            “It’s crawling, John.  On the floor.  Make it stop.”

            “Babies tend to do that, Sherlock.  Problem?”

            “It’s gotten onto my lap now.  Do I pet it?  Will that make it go away?”

            “Just entertain him, Sherlock—the Doctor can’t make bacon without ruining a kitchen, and he left us to clean it, okay?”

            Sherlock looked at the baby cooing on his lap.  “Hello.  Evidently your name is Bo.  Please, Bo, do not do something horrid like throw up all over my shoes.”

            The baby, for his part, paid attention.  He rolled off his lap and crawled over to his blocks and arranged them into the letters ‘T-W-I-T’.

            Sherlock’s lips perked up at that.  “Interesting.  Can you speak yet?”

            The baby played with blocks more and rearranged them into a much worse word.

            Sherlock was engaged.  “Fascinating.  Do it again.”

            John heard the indistinct sounds of Sherlock and the baby actually having fun and immediately got suspicious.  “Boys?  How’s everything going over there?”

            “John, he’s brilliant.  He can’t speak yet, but he’s absolutely the most intelligent baby I’ve ever seen.  He might even be as intelligent as I was.”

            “Your self-absorption is astounding.”  John shook his head and put down the clean pans.  “What exactly are you playing?”

            “I believe it’s called ‘blocks’.”  Sherlock fell flat on his belly and watched the child with rapture.

            John walked over to them and sat down with them.  “Wow.  Curse words.  Rose and 10 must be proud.”

            “I certainly am.  Bo, do you know my name?”

            The baby, with some difficulty, managed to misspell Sherlock before throwing the blocks in the air.

            Sherlock rolled onto his back.  “Well, now he’s disappointed me.”

            “You have to be patient with him, Sherlock.  Here,” John said kindly, replacing the wrong letters and rearranging them to make the name.  “That’s his name, Bo.  Can you spell yours?”

            The baby gurgled and pulled an ‘o’ from Sherlock.  John handed him a few more blocks, and he decisively picked a ‘b’.

            Sherlock’s humors picked up.  “Do you know his name, then?  Not me, but him.”  He pointed to John.

            The baby clapped his hands.  “John!” he said with a happy gurgle.  Then he climbed back into Sherlock’s lap and grabbed some of his hair.

            Sherlock grumbled as his curls were tugged.  “John, he’s pulling my hair.”

            “You have great hair.”  John scooted next to them.  “Can you really blame him?”

            They sat there together in front of a muted television, watching the baby that looked so much like his father.

            Sherlock started to get used to Bo pulling at his hair.  “This isn’t too terrible.”

            “Most people like babies.”

            “I didn’t say I hated them.  They’re just a waste of my time, usually.”

            “But you like this one.”

            “This one isn’t too bad.  He’s smart.  I like people who don’t waste my time.  He’s interesting.”

            “Intewesting,” the baby repeated in a sweet voice before nodding off on Sherlock’s shoulder.

            “John.  He’s sleeping on me.”

            “He’s a baby.  They do that.”

            “Get him off me.”

            John considered it.  “I don’t think I will.  He likes you.”  He petted Bo’s head.

            Sherlock scoffed.  “I’m not good at this.”

            “At what?”

            “This whole…parenting thing.  I don’t have the knack for it.  You…do.”

            John considered that, as well.  “Well, I’m not the one he chose to sleep on, am I?  I’d say you do have a knack for some of it.”

            He grumbled in response.  “No.”

            John let them all sit in silence for a while.  Taking the shoulder that wasn’t occupied by a snoring baby, he rested his head Sherlock’s shoulder and closed his eyes.

            Sherlock noticed immediately.  “What are you doing?”

            “Resting.  Problem?”

            “…No.”  Sherlock shifted his head and awkwardly rested it on John’s hair.  “No, it’s quite all right…we’ve had a long day, I suppose.”

            “Right.  For what it’s worth, sociopath and all, I think you’d be a terrific father.  A little unorthodox, but a really, really good one.”

            “Thank you.”  Sherlock blinked.  “I think you’d be good.  At parenting.  Fatherhood.  Good.”

            John didn’t respond, instead choosing to rest and take in the relative peace of the moment.

            Sherlock, for his part, couldn’t relax.  There was simply too much stimuli.  There was a baby on his shoulder, a baby he didn’t actually dislike, a baby he wouldn’t mind having one like, back in his own universe…maybe one day.  And on his other shoulder was a man.  A man he’d felt _something_ for, for a long time.  Something he didn’t know how to describe or name or identify, but for the first time in his life, he was thinking that maybe he wanted to.  Later, when he had time.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

            “So, you don’t know where she is,” 10 said after 11 had explained the entire story.  “Do we have any leads?  You’d know better than me.”

            “I have a feeling that he’ll be giving us a clue.  We’re working right into his game now, even though we’ve beaten him to the whole Rose-Doctor-River-Doctor quadrangle thing.  He wants me, so he’s pulling the people I care about into the equation.  He’ll come looking for me soon, if he doesn’t already know where I am.”

            “So what’s the plan?” Rose asked.

            “I’m trying to get an army of sorts, and instead of going for size, I’m going for intelligence.  I could use you and 10, if you’re willing to join me.  If not, then…well, I was in the neighborhood, and I wanted to say hello.”

            “We’re going to help you,” 10 affirmed for him.  “River needs you, and you need us.  And if your child is in danger, we will stop at nothing to get them all back, safe.”

            “I don’t really have a plan,” 11 warned them.  “I just wanted to be prepared.  I’m making it all up as I go along.  I’m…” He actually broke down into tears.  “I’m lost.  I have no idea what to do or how to go up against these people.  They’re completely unknown to me, and they know exactly how to hide.  I only know that Moriarty has a huge web even bigger than mine, and he’s after me.  And I know he won’t stop.”

            Rose soothed him, putting a hand on his back.  “We’re here for you.  We’re going to help bring River back.”

            10 nodded. “We’ll take Bo, Jackie, and Pete in the TARDIS, and we’ll hide them in another universe.  Your universe—just in case this goes badly and they’re in danger.  Where can we take them?”

            “With Mickey,” Rose said.  “He’ll take care of them.”

            11 smiled.  “He married Martha, did you know?  Your baby will be with the safest parents in the universe.”

            Rose’s face lit up to hear it.  “That’s great.  Mickey and Martha, that’s brilliant.”

            “So we give them to Mickey and Martha,” 10 continued.  “And then we search this universe for Kovarian and Moriarty.  If we get to them first, we can stage a negotiation.”

            11 rolled his eyes.  “I forgot—you’re the merciful incarnation.”

            “And what?  You aren’t?”

            “Come on, then.”  Rose brushed the wet sand off her pants and went back into the TARDIS.  “10, luv, take us home.  I want to make sure our boy is safe.”

            10 ran back into the TARDIS gleefully and took them home while Rose and 11 lingered in the doorway.

            “I thought you might be angry,” 11 whispered.

            “What?  That you fell in love?” Rose shook her head.  “I didn’t want you to be alone forever.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, it is a little weird.  I kind of thought it was just going to be you and me… But I’m happy now, with my Doctor.  I have my own life now.  I don’t blame you for having yours.  She must be some woman to have gotten you to marry her.  And put a baby in her, too!”

            “She is.  You’ll like her, Rose.  She’s wonderful and mad, but loyal and brave.  Like you.”

            Rose began to walk to her husband at the console before turning around and asking 11 in a quiet voice.  “You love her very much?”

            “Yes,” he answered in a broken voice.

            “And she knows?”

            “I think so.”

            “Did you love me?”

            11 smiled.  “Rose.  Isn’t it obvious?”

            “No, don’t _do_ that!” She groaned and smacked him on the shoulder.  “This is the third time you’ve skirted around the question.  Just tell me if it mattered.  Tell me if you loved me.”

            “I did.”  There was no point in denying it anymore.  “I didn’t want to say it, because it would hurt you and make it difficult for you to move on with Handy.  But I did.  I still do, and I always will, in my own way.  But it’s different now.  I love her differently.”

            “Of course you do, she’s your wife.  Don’t be thick,” she laughed.  “Thank you for finally telling me.  I loved you, too, Doctor.  Always will.  But it’s him for me, now.  Him for me, and her for you.  But it would be my honor to help you get her back.  I’d love to meet her.”

            11 followed her to the console.  “By the way, folks, I can help with that TARDIS coral of yours.  A little zip of Time Lord magic, and I think we can make it grow to full capacity.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

            “We’re back, John and Sherlock and Bo!” 11 said with a huge wave.  The TARDIS landed in the same spot it had been in that morning.  Rose and 10 stepped out to retrieve their son, along with Jackie and Pete, only to find that the two men had fallen asleep on the couch with a baby between them, all looking very comfortable.

            11 grabbed a camera and snapped a few pictures before the baby’s parents took him away.


	9. Chapter 9

John was dreaming again, even in the short span of time he’d been nodding off on Sherlock’s shoulder.  This time, his dreams were drenched in blood, the rosy, jewel-red of the stuff that sped through Sherlock’s veins and gave him life.  It had spilled over the pavements beneath St. Bart’s and spread like a river into John’s soul, coating the walls of 221B and flooding down the TARDIS walls.  He cringed in his sleep.

            The Doctor watched them from his perch across the room, where he was formulating a plan.  10 and Rose had left ages ago, and he was waiting for them to return.  But it made him feel a little lighter to watch John and Sherlock curled up on the sofa, unaware of how they’d embraced each other as soon as the baby was taken from them.  Sherlock’s arm curled protectively around John’s shoulder, and John’s hand had grabbed a handful of Sherlock’s shirt.

            “They’re so thick, sometimes,” he said to himself, getting off the chair to get some biscuits and tea.

            John buried his face into Sherlock’s shirt and moaned, a pitiful sound that Sherlock heard, even through his sleepy haze.  His grip tightened slightly.

            John woke up as he usually did, but this time he noticed the arm around him.  “Sherlock, wake up.”

            “Hmm?”

            “Wake up.  We fell asleep.”

            Sherlock’s eyes fluttered open.  “The baby.”

            The Doctor interjected from the other room.  “His parents took him.  Go back to sleep, we have a long day ahead of us.  I’m making tea.”

             John’s head flopped onto Sherlock’s chest.  “Everything’s safe.  We’re okay.”

            “Did you have a nightmare?” Sherlock whispered.

            John nodded tersely.  “It’s not a big deal.”  He made to get up off Sherlock, leaving the dark-haired detective grunting in objection.

            “I was quite comfortable the way we were, thank you.”

            “Well, it’s a bit weird, even for good friends.”

            “John.”

            And John thought, for the most horrifying, perfect moment, that Sherlock was finally going to say something, until the entire house went dark.

            The Doctor dropped the kettle and ran to the living room.  “Sherlock!  John!”

            “We’re fine.  Who turned out the lights?”

            The television flickered off momentarily and then turned back on.  The face of Moriarty filled the screen.  “Afternoon, gents.  Didn’t I tell you you’d guess in a minute, Sherly?  Oh, and finally the Doctor gets to meet _me_ …you’re looking very cute, Doc.  I’d wrap you up and take another in a minute.  Which I can do, by the way, as soon as your clone and his little pet come back.”

            The Doctor’s hands clenched in anger.  “James Moriarty.  I believe you have something of mine that I’m going to take back.”

            “Feisty, too.  Oh, yes, I have your little River.  She’s really quite fun.  I think I’m going to keep her and turn her into something useful.  You can never have too many assassins.”

            “Round two, Moriarty,” Sherlock said, plowing through to keep the Doctor from mucking it up with his emotions.  “You have us right where you want us.  We’re in the right universe.  But you can’t include Rose and her Doctor into your plan anymore.”

            “Well, that’s a shame.  I thought that would make everything a bit more spicy, but really this is _so_ much better!”

            “And why is that?”

            “Because,” Moriarty sneered, “you’re grounded, gorgeous.  The lovebirds have the TARDIS, and you’re all stuck on Earth.  So, in light of this new development, I’ve decided it’s time for a new game.  And you know what, Doctor?  We’re going to keep playing my games until I win everything you care about.  Don’t bother with your plans or armies; they’re all dull as bricks.  I’d try and convince you to just come to me now, but you’re not going to do that.”

            “Not in the least.  You know, you’re rather brilliant.”

            “Cheers.”

            “But you’ve made one fatal mistake.”

            “Ah, I’m sure you’re going to say something about how I underestimate the power of your cosmic love, or something equally stupid.  I don’t underestimate love.  It’s actually quite useful.  It makes for the best manipulations.  But enough!”  Moriarty clapped his hands.  “Time for our new game.  Boys…”

            The entire room went blank, and for the oddest moment, it was like the house had deleted itself.  The three men were all in a spaceless world with no color, light, or sound, only each other’s forms.  John and Sherlock unwittingly grabbed each other’s hands.

            Moriarty’s voice finally boomed through them, vibrating in their heads and filling their bodies with sickening volume.  “Welcome to the Dreamscape.  Inspired by Johnny Boy, this one—I’m about to separate you all and make you run around like cute little mice.  And there’s no telling what you’ll see or hear in here, so do try and keep your wits about you.  The object of the game—find someone.  Before you lose your mind.”

            Sherlock shook his head.  “It doesn’t make sense.  How do _you_ win?”

            Moriarty chuckled.  “Darling.  I already have.  1…2…3…run, little rabbits!  There’s a rabbithole for you somewhere!”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

            Sherlock woke alone in his own dreamscape, alone.  He reached out and grabbed for something, anything, but John wasn’t there.  The Doctor was long gone.

            He tried to process and gather data, but there wasn’t a single thing around him.  The space was all empty, vast and complete nothingness all at once.  No data, a true nightmare.  Moriarty knew him well.

            Not letting his brain go mad with the white noise, he tried to focus on an objective.  There had to be a way for Moriarty to win, and he said he already had.  Was it really just as simple as enjoying the spectacle of watching three great men lose their minds?

            If it was, he wasn’t going to let Moriarty win.  He had to find someone.

            He walked along the lines of infinity, wishing that he could make some semblance of sense of it all.  The blankness of everything made his head spin.  He must have walked for hours when he heard it.

            “Freak.”

            He spun around, looking to see where it came from.  The voice had no source and no discernable familiarity.  It sounded just like a small child.

            “Freak,” it repeated, somehow closer.  Sherlock’s heart pounded.  He Ignored the voice and kept walking.

            “Freak.”

            “John?” he asked, wheeling around.  “Doctor?”

            “Freak.  Freak.  Freak.”

            He walked past the voices that trailed him, turning into more and more familiar voices.  Donovan’s.  Anderson’s.  Children from primary school.  Colleagues at uni.  “Freak.  Freak.  Freak.”

            “Freak.”

            “Freak.”

            “ _Freak_.”

            “He can’t feel anything.”

            “He’s a psychopath.”

            “Freak.”

            “Get away from him.”

            “Look at him—he actually gets off on this stop.”

            Sherlock groaned.  “Stop!” he begged the cacophony, but it only made a larger wall of sound.

            “He’s going to cry.  What a baby.”

            “Freak.”

            “No wonder no one likes him.”

            “That’s not true!” he argued.  “Blast, what am I doing?  Moriarty’s only messing with my head.  Forget it.  Forget it all.”

            “Freak.”

            “Freak.”

            “ _Freak_.”

            “ _FREAK_.”

            He kept walking from the sounds and insults, unaware that as he walked, he had started to cry.  The words got louder and more vicious, causing him to pick up speed until he seemingly hit a wall and the words pounded at him like daggers, forcing him into a ball on the ground.

            “ _FREAK.  FREAK.  FREAK.  FREAK.  FREAK.  FREAK._ ”

            “Hullo?”

            All at once, the voices stopped, with one single one remaining.  Sherlock looked up from his position on the ground, whimpering, to find John standing there.  “John?”

            He smiled.  “What are you doing on the ground?”

            “The voices were…oh, John, you have no idea how happy I am to see you!” he said, running up to him and stopping when he saw a woman standing with him.  “No.  Wait.  You’re not.  You’re not him.”

            “What are you talking about, mate?” John asked, his arm snaking around the woman’s side.  “All right in the head?”

            “This isn’t real.  It’s another test.  Moriarty’s making it out of my mind.”

            John blew air through his teeth.  “He’s a real bugger, isn’t he?”

            Then he walked away, with his hand in the woman’s.  Sherlock breathed in relief, but he turned around to find John again, this time with a different woman.

            John gave him a concerned look.  “Sherlock, are you okay?”

            Sherlock shook his head and looked up to where he thought was the sky.  “Moriarty, I’m not going to play this anymore.  I know it isn’t real.  It’s not real!!!”

            “Keep it down, will you?” John asked, entering from his periphery with two women.  “Some of us are trying to score here.”

            Sherlock ran, not knowing where he was or how to fix it, until he noticed drops of bright red trailing behind him.  He seemed to have lost the Dream John, but the crimson kept following him, until he noticed it spilling out from his coat.  It coated his palms and spurted out of his sleeves, making him take off his coat in alarm.  It continued, thick and hot, down the side of his face, soaking into his scarf.

            Sherlock relaxed in a way.  This must be related to his death in some way.  That made sense.  If this was all his blood, he could deal with it—he wasn’t afraid of his own death.

            A knife dropped out of his pant leg, followed by a deluge of syringes.  The knife was coated with black, crusty blood.  Out of nowhere, a form crumpled off in the distance.  From where Sherlock stood, it looked like himself, falling off the roof and hitting the ground.  The form had the same coat.

            He ran to himself without thinking, dripping the blood behind him, and reached the body only to turn it over and see John’s lifeless face peeking up at him.

            He began sobbing then, well and truly sobbing in his pain and confusion, while another John walked by holding Moriarty’s hand.  “D’you need some tea, Sherlock?” he asked, while Moriarty ate a bit of popcorn from his bag.  “Could you put the kettle on, dear?”

            Moriarty grinned.  “My pleasure.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

            John woke up, unsurprisingly, to a war.  The landscape was a rough, sandy expanse, with battalions of men in desert camouflage shouting and toting guns.  It was familiar, at least.  He fell in step behind the soldiers, feeling his medical bag smack his back as he jogged to wherever they were leading him.

            The desert stretched on for miles, and somehow his mind did not reject this.  This was something he understood and could work with.  He didn’t even consider that it was all a dream, in the way that dreams always seem real to the dreamer.

            Land mines began to explode as unlucky soldiers tread on them.  The desert sky was going up in dusty flames, and still John ran to safety—wherever that was.

            It turned out, miles later, that safety meant stumbling into 221B.  He tripped over his boots and fell onto his face in front of Sherlock’s armchair, and the kettle was whistling.  Brushing himself off, he ran to get the tea and poured two cups.  His uniform had been replaced by a jumper and jeans.

            He waited for Sherlock to come home and drink his tea.

            He waited.

            Eventually, Sarah walked in and picked up the mug.

            “That’s not your tea,” he informed her.

            “It’s not like he’s going to drink it.”

            He glanced away in annoyance, and when he looked back, he was somehow standing at the altar of a church, with white flower blossoms spilling out of the windows.  Sarah was in front of him in a white gown and veil, still drinking Sherlock’s tea.  “Isn’t this what you wanted?”

            “No,” he disagreed, trying to take off the tuxedo that was strangling him.  “He’s missing.  He’s supposed to be here.”

            “To watch you marry someone else?” Sarah asked, now dressed in Moriarty’s Westwood suit.  “Charming.  Maybe, if he’s lucky, he’ll be there for all your defining moments.”

            John shook his head violently, running back to the desert and searching each soldier’s face for a trace of Sherlock’s features.  For some reason, he couldn’t find him.

            Finally, he spotted one with dark enough hair to possibly be Sherlock.  When he grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him around, he was staring into the face of Irene Adler.

            “Hello, dear,” she purred.  “Don’t I look smashing in uniform?  Though it’s hardly my battle dress.”

            “Irene, have you seen Sherlock?”

            “No, darling, but to be fair, this _is_ your nightmare.”

            “He’s always in my nightmares.”

            Irene rolled her eyes.  “Of course he is, dear, but really, what’s worse—the fact that he’s in your dreams, dead, or the fact that he’s not in your dreams at all?”

            He ran from her and kept screaming for his flatmate, knowing the more he wished to see his face, the less likely Sherlock was to show up.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

            The Doctor knew exactly what he was going to wake up to.  He didn’t even open his eyes when he felt himself land on the Dreamscape.

            Finally, after he’d waited an appropriate amount of time and planned his escape, he opened his eyes and stood up.  “Hello,” he told the long line, “I’ve been waiting for you.”

            The line extended forever, it seemed, made up of all different alien races and faces he recognized in some capacity.  He nodded and acknowledged each one’s forlorn face, transmitting silent apologies.  His mother was there, crying in shame.  Even his first wife and children were there, looking with accusing eyes.

            He walked down the line, knowing they weren’t really there but feeling guilty nonetheless.  Near the end of the line, the order was more chronological.

            “Hello, Rose.”  He stopped in front of the blonde with a sad smile.  “I’m sorry for leaving you behind.  I’m sorry for lying to you.”

            She gave him only a wistful frown.  “You left me.  You didn’t even bother telling me you loved me.  You might as well have killed me.”

            He nodded and moved on.  “Martha.  You look wonderful.”

            She glared at him.  “You didn’t think I was good enough, even after I saved the world.”

            “You were more than enough.  You’re absolutely brilliant.  Hello, Mickey,” he said, addressing the man next to Martha.  “I’m sorry to both you of you.  I’m sorry for making you feel so much pain on my account, Martha.  I wish I could go back and fix it.  Mickey, I knew I was taking Rose from you and I didn’t care, because I was selfish.  I’m sorry.”

            Mickey didn’t say anything.

            He kept walking past them all.  “I’m sorry for leaving you, Jack.  I’m sorry for everything, Sarah Jane.  I’m sorry you sacrificed yourself for me, Astrid.  And Donna, I am so sorry.  You were the best, you really were.  And I miss you.  I miss you all.”

            As he apologized, miraculously, they all disappeared.  He wasn’t sure if that was part of Moriarty’s game, or if he was winning.  Finally, he came to the end.  “Amy, Rory.  I’m sorry I let you go.  I should have taken better care of you.”

            “You made me lose my baby,” Amy said in a quiet voice.  “I won’t forgive you.”

            “Not to be rude, Amy, but you already have forgiven me.  You always have.  I’m also truly sorry for making you doubt Amy’s devotion, Rory.  She’s always been yours.  I shouldn’t have encouraged her.”

            Rory took Amy’s hand and left.

            There were only a few left.  They all looked dead now, as dry and bloodless as corpses. 

            “Sherlock, John…” he addressed them.  “I’m sorry for putting you in danger.  I’m so sorry.  I will try and save you from this.  I’m going to bring you back to your future.  You’re going to be fine.”

            They dropped like flies.

            “Handy, I’m sorry for leaving you behind and making you out of blood and war.  You were left with more pain than a lifetime could heal, and I didn’t care.  I still hated you at first.  Forgive me.”

            There was only one left now.

            “River,” he began slowly, taking in how this vision of his wife looked so terrifying.  She had an enormously pregnant belly that looked distorted from her skeletal body.  Her warm eyes looked unusually hollow and dark.

            “Melody Pond,” he said with a loving smile.  “The woman who married me.  I am probably the most sorry when it comes to you.”

            “And why is that, sweetie?” she said in a voice that sounded like dry leaves on pavement.

            “Because I keep losing you when I’m not looking.  When you were a baby, when you were growing up, even when you died… Especially now.  Every time I lose sight of you and our marriage, something takes you away and reminds me of how important you really are.”

            “That’s not the reason I hate you,” she hissed, putting a protective hand on her belly.

            “What is?”

            “I hate you…because you will never love me as much as I love you.  And we both know it.”

            The Doctor stared at her for a long time, not letting her disappear.  Finally he said, “That’s where you’re wrong, honey.  I love you more than you can possibly know or ever comprehend.  That’s rather the point of why I have such a hard time telling you—I lose everyone I love.  I always lose you.  I used to think that if I didn’t reveal how desperately and deeply and honestly I love you, you’d be safe from people like Moriarty.  But now I know that won’t help either of us, so I’m going to work on telling you exactly how much I love you when you and I talk again.”

            And despite the fact that she hissed and her skin turned ashen, and she pushed him away with shrunken hands, he softly grabbed her shoulders and kissed the top of her head.

            Then the faces were all gone and the Doctor was alone.

            He smiled in disbelief.  He might have just beaten Moriarty.

            He walked along the cables that stretched forever, not thinking of Sherlock or John.  He knew they’d show up eventually.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

            Sherlock was done with crying.  He’d been doing it for years in his dream prison, rocking over the body of John while another John looked at him curiously with a martini in hand.  Jim lounged on a throne nearby, bored with the whole mess.

            “I liked him much better when he was interesting and unemotional,” Jim droned. “This is boring.”

            John swilled the martini around and plucked out the olive.  “You’re telling me, mate.”

            Sherlock got up and wiped the sheets of blood off his coat.

            “Oh, look, the freak’s about to do something,” John sighed.  He tossed back the martini.

            “I’m leaving you all.”

            “Good luck, freak,” John said with a shrug.  “I happen to be right behind you.”

            Sure enough, Sherlock turned around and John was there again.  Everywhere he looked, there was a new one with a cruel smile.  “Want to watch _me_ jump?” they all snickered.  “It’s bound to be entertaining.  There’ll even be pretty colors.”

            “Please…no!” Sherlock cried, and phantom Johns burst across this vision, tumbling down invisible walls and hitting the ground with sick splats.

            Jim called out from his chair, “Just so you know, Sherly, you’d better get a move on and try and find someone in here.  If there are three of you, the one who’s the last to find someone is going to have to stay with me.  Right now, buddy, it looks like it’s going to be you.”

            “Bastard!” Sherlock growled.  “I’m going to find him.  This is all fake.  I just have to beat you.”

            “That’s the idea, yes,” John yawned.

            “Stop it.  Please.”  Sherlock clutched at his temples.  “Think, think, I need to think.  There’s logic to this.  I can figure this out.  Moriarty’s using me to make this game.  It has to be based on my weaknesses.”

            “Well, it’s not exactly hard to find them,” John continued for Jim.  “You’re easily the most insecure of everyone here.  Though you’d never admit it.  You’re afraid John’s going to leave you.  You’re afraid you’re too much of a freak for him to ever want you, to ever want to be with you…”

            “That’s not true.”

            “You think you’re too much of a freak for him to ever love you.  That’s why you won’t say it.  You know he’s going to reject you.  And you know what, Sherlock?” John got very close to him, only an inch away from his face, and breathed, “You’re right.”

            “No.”

            “You’re completely right.  He’d be mad to want you.  Who would want you?  You’re a psychopath.  You actually _enjoy_ watching people die.  You get a _thrill_ out of it.  You belong in the dark, with the macabre and deadly.  You’re rude and impulsive and you don’t care about other people one bit.  It’s no wonder Johnny wants to get married to a nice girl and pop out a few cute kids.  It’s not like you’re anyone’s idea of an ideal future.  You don’t have a future, Sherlock.”

            “No…” Sherlock stood his ground, but he was whimpering and shaking.  Every fiber of his being wanted to reject the words coming out of John’s mouth, but he couldn’t.  It was all too true.  “It’s not…John would never do this…he cares…”

            “He hates you, Sherlock.  You left him and now he hates you.”

            Mycroft strolled into the picture, dangling his umbrella in a jolly way.  “Oh, look, dear brother—you’re crying again.  I do think you’ve lost your mind.”

            Jim grinned.  “I win.”

            “Sherlock!”

            The detective curled on the ground again, shaking and quivering in complete brokenness.  He’d never felt this torn apart before.  His world was pulling apart at the seams, and he longed for cocaine to make the images in front of him swirl in a way that meant more than outright slaughter of his limited emotions.

            “Sherlock, wake up!  Don’t let them hurt you!”  
            “Go away,” he moaned.

            “Sherlock, it’s me,” a voice said, shaking him by the shoulders, and Sherlock felt the sensation that he was a drowning man being pulled to the open air.  The suction that held him to the pain was lifted and he was free, and he wished with all his might that his savior was John.

            A pair of ageless eyes looked pleadingly into his and Sherlock’s faith was lost.  “Doctor,” he said.  “Is it really…how can I tell…?”

            “Just look at me.  Moriarty’s games aren’t substantial.  Have you noticed that they can’t actually touch you?”

            “The blood…. I don’t believe you,” he started, backing away.

            The Doctor rolled his eyes.  “I don’t have time to convince you.”  Bracing himself, he took two steps forward and punched Sherlock right in the face.

            “OW!” Sherlock rubbed his jaw.  “Doctor, it _is_ you!”

            “Of course it is, you dolt.  You were letting him win, you goose!  You’re too brilliant to let Moriarty get to you, Sherlock, so don’t start now.”

            “You found me.”  Sherlock looked panicked.  “That means…”

            “Means what?”

            A trumpet sounded and made a huge fanfare as the dreamscape, with all of its blood and pain, disappeared.  Sherlock and the Doctor found themselves in the living room of Rose and 10’s house.  Sherlock grasped his hands and legs, reveling in his realness.

            Moriarty’s face showed up on the screen.  “Cheers, Doctor.  I thought for sure you’d crack first, but you figured it all out.  I’m going to have such fun designing a new way to break you.”

            “Where’s John?” the Doctor asked, not taking the compliment.

            “He lost the game.  Clearly.  Now I get to keep him.”

            “That wasn’t part of the rules!”  
            “Well, ask Sherlock…I happen to be very changeable.”  Jim rolled his eyes.  “Isn’t this more fun, anyway?  Now Sherly has a stake in this.  I have River, and I have John.”

            Sherlock’s rage had reached a new level of silence and eerie coldness.  “Jim.”

            “First-name basis, oooh, this is fun.  Yes, Sherly?”

            “You’re going to die.  I am going to make sure of it.”

            “That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?  I’m about to let you say hi to Johnny, too.  So rude.”

            The television flickered and switched to a new channel, where John stood surrounded by a small group of the Silence, who were all toting guns.  His hands were cuffed behind him, and he stared straight at the screen without betraying an ounce of fear and confusion.

            “ _John_ ,” Sherlock breathed, kneeling in front of the screen.  “John, I’m so sorry.  I’m going to get you back, I promise.”

            John nodded.  “I know.  I’m fine, guys.  Moriarty won’t hurt me.  It’s all part of the game.  I’m just a pawn, now.  Leverage.”

            “You’re not a pawn,” the Doctor reassured him.  “Moriarty’s scared of you.  He doesn’t understand how strong you are, so he’s keeping you so you don’t have the advantage.  Don’t forget that.”

            “I’ll try and look for River,” he promised.  “If I can.  I’ll look after her, for you.”

            “Thank you.”

            “Sherlock?” John betrayed the smallest bit of terror in his eyes.  “Can you see me?”

            “Yes, John.  I’m here.”

            “I’m…not scared.”

            “I know you’re not.”

            “I’m worried about you.  Stay with the Doctor, okay?  He’ll keep you safe, yeah?” He licked his lips.  “Beat Moriarty.  Don’t worry about me.  You’re going to beat him and kill him and you’ll take us all home, I’m sure of it.”

            “John…”

            “No, you listen to me, Sherlock Holmes.  I trust you, okay?” He refused to let himself shake.  “ _I trust you to do this_.  I’m going to be fine.  Stop worrying.  Use your head, use the data, and save us all.  And then we’ll go home to 221B, and you can shoot the wall as much as you like, and I’ll never complain if you play the violin at 3 in the morning.”

            “John, there’s something…” Sherlock paused.  “There’s something I’ve got to tell you.”

            John gave him a brave smile.  “Sherlock, it doesn’t need saying.”  
            He couldn’t help but mirror John’s smile, but he shook his head.  “Yes, it does.  John Watson, you must know—”

            “Sherlock, don’t.  Please.  If you’re about to say what I think you’re going to say, Moriarty will use this.  He’ll beat you with it.  Don’t say it.”

            “He’s already using it.”

            “Then for me, please.”  John blinked back what might have been a tear.  “If you say it now, it’ll be like you’re saying goodbye.  And I can’t handle that.  This isn’t goodbye, so stuff it.”

            Sherlock kept tears at bay himself.  “Okay.  I’ll tell you when I meet you.”

            “You’d better, you sod.  You owe me, big time.”

            The Doctor reached for Sherlock’s hand.  “I’ll watch him, John.  You take care of yourself.”

            “Time’s up, boys.  Come and play, when you’re ready.  I’m bubbling with excitement,” Moriarty finished off, turning off the screen and leaving two broken men hopelessly alone.


	10. Chapter 10

Sherlock was sitting on the chair with his legs crossed underneath him, not opening an eyelid even when the Doctor brought him lunch and then greeted 10 and Rose when they got home.  They discussed everything in hushed tones over the dining room table, sparing him worried glances.

            “Did he and John…were he and John…?” Rose tiptoed around the question.

            11 could only nod.  “Yes and no.  They hadn’t made it official yet, or even announced their intentions.  But it was there.”

            “And now he has them both.  So what’s the plan?” 10 demanded.

            “Well, we can use the TARDIS to lock onto River’s signal from here, and John’s as well.  We can get to their ship that way, but Moriarty’s expecting us to meet him there.  He _wants_ us to.  So, we have to have a plan once we’re on the ship.”

            They tossed around a few ideas but ended up hating them all, and 11 finally put his face in his hands and was about to give up and get some sleep when Sherlock burst out of his trance with a loud, “Oh!  Oh, of course!”

            Without losing a single second, he ran across the room and burst through the doors of the TARDIS.

            “What are you doing?  Sherlock?” 11 got up and went to follow him, but miraculously enough, the TARDIS began to dematerialize.  “SHERLOCK!”  He grabbed at the particles as they disappeared.  “HOW DID HE LEARN HOW TO DRIVE A TARDIS?!?!?!?”

            10 ran behind him, followed by Rose, but the TARDIS was gone.  “That’s impossible!” 10 insisted.  “Only Time Lords can drive TARDISes!  How did he do that?”

            “He _is_ a genius,” Rose said.

            The TARDIS came back for a few moments, whooshing in protest at its driver, and Sherlock’s voice could be heard from within.  “Wait, sorry—I got it wrong.  I figured it out!  I’ll be back!”

            And the TARDIS wheezed away yet again.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

            John kept his cool as the aliens led him away, somehow forgetting they were there whenever his vision strayed from them.  It was all going to be okay, he was sure of it.  Moriarty didn’t want to kill him.  He only had to wait until Sherlock came to rescue him.

            Sherlock was going to rescue him.  Sherlock was coming.  He knew, right now, more than anything in the entire world, that Sherlock was planning a daring, intelligent, smarmy rescue mission.  John had the easiest part—waiting.

            Or was that the hardest part?  John couldn’t tell.

            He paid close attention to the route the aliens marched him through to get to his cell, cataloguing its details in case it could help him later.  When he was thrown unceremoniously into his all-white cell, he ran through it a few times and committed it to memory.  His handcuffs slipped off as soon as the cell doors sealed shut, and he sat up and searched around him.  The cell was all blank, stark white with two cots and a desk.  The desk was covered with books, and behind it, a very pregnant woman sat looking very impatient.

            “Hello, sweetie,” River Song said.  “I must say, if this is a rescue, it’s very unconvincing.”

            He turned around to face her.  “You must be River Song.  I can’t believe Moriarty actually let us in the same cell.  It must be another game.”

            The blonde looked surprise. “John?  You haven’t met me yet…”

            “No…is this another one of those timey-wimey things?  You’ve already met me?”

            “Yes, in your future, I suppose,” she said, standing up and revealing a huge belly. 

            “Whoa, you’re really, really pregnant,” John remarked.  He mentally slapped himself—that probably wasn’t the best thing to say, considering the look River gave him.  “You’re, er, glowing, though!  Time Lord baby’ll do that to you.  How far along are you?”

            She rubbed a hand on the top of her stomach.  “Eight bloody months.  It’s torture.  I’ve lost all my curves and I’m a hideous lump.”

            “At least they’re feeding you and treating you well.  We were all afraid they’d been torturing you.”

            “No—Jim’s smarter than that.  He doesn’t like to get his hands dirty, the rat,” she said with a hateful sniff.  “Tell me, is the Doctor all right?  Is he coming for us?”

            “He’s fine.  Worried loads about you, though.  Sherlock and I were helping him plan to take you back, with 10 and Rose’s help.”  John wasn’t sure if he should have revealed that Rose was involved, but she only smiled.

            “Ah, Rose and Handy.  They’ll be a huge help.  This is brilliant.  The Doctor has it all worked out, I know it.  Has he said anything?  Is he really okay?”

            “He’s kind of too worried about you and the baby to really freak out about anything else, but once that baby comes, you’re probably in for a bit of trouble.  He’s a panicky one.”

            “Don’t I know it.  How are you and Sherlock?”

            “Good.  Erm, fine.”

            “He must be worried sick about you.  Absolutely bonkers,” River sighed.  “Come and sit.  We’ve got to sit tight and wait for our boys to come home.”

            John couldn’t believe it.  “You’re kidding.  From what I’ve heard about you, you’re a complete kick-ass.  You have to have a plan to get out of here.”

            “I happen to be a complete kick-ass, Dr. Watson, as you’re going to find out in the future.  I don’t want to give too much away, but you and I do a lot of work on the Neera Spaceship Base.  And I _do_ happen to have a plan.  I’ve had scores of plans.  It’s just that this baby makes them difficult.  I can’t endanger her.”

            John looked at River’s huge stomach.  “It’s a girl?”

            “Yes.  I know, a little weird.  I thought it was going to be a boy, but she’s a fighter.  Like her mum.”  River looked lovingly at her baby.  “I know you’ve only just met me, but in the future we happen to be good friends, and these damned pregnancy hormones make me so emotional, so…forgive me if I start crying.  I’ve just been really lonely for the past five months.”

            “The Doctor only found out about this a few days ago.”

            “Well, he doesn’t exactly get the timing right, but he usually gets here in time for me.  And he will for us.”  River put her hands on her hips.  “And I do have a plan.  I’m going to need your body, though.”

            “Oi, River, they said you were flirty, but you’re married!”

            “You’ll be back to snog your detective tonight, if we’re lucky.”

            “I don’t want to snog him—he isn’t my detective.”

            “He _so_ is.  And you _so_ do.”

            “We’re done talking about this.  Onto the plan.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

By the time both Doctors had jerry-rigged a computer tracking system to track down the TARDIS, it arrived back in the living room, almost completely charred and smoking like mad.

11 looked furious, barging straight into the time machine and not even pausing at the burning hot door handle.  “Just what in Gallifrey’s name did you think you were doing?”

Sherlock emerged, looking triumphant.  “Clinching our victory.  I had to do some things I knew you wouldn’t approve of, so it had to be a solo mission.”

“You half-destroyed my TARDIS—how could you even drive it?”  
            “Oh, Doctor, really, it’s not as difficult as you make it out to be.  I got her back in one piece, didn’t I?”

11 stroked the sides of his ship.  “It’s all right, Sexy,” he blubbered.  “I won’t let the mean sociopath hurt you again, I promise.”

Sherlock smudged his smoky hands on the furniture and faced his audience.  “I was so confused on how to fix everything and beat Moriarty, and I lost John, but I compartmentalized the pain and transferred it into hyperactivity.  I’ve been in the TARDIS for at least three days, doing various things, and here’s what I have figured out: Moriarty gets his victims by focusing on their relationships.  He considers love a weakness.  So the only way to beat him is to find his own weakness, and I happen to know what it is.”

“Moriarty’s been in love?” Rose asked incredulously.

“Something like it.  Twice.  I propose we stage a negotiation and barter for River and John by offering him the life of someone he cares about.”

“How do we do that?”

Sherlock smirked and went back into the TARDIS, where he snatched and pulled an unconscious man by his gag out to the living room.

10 gasped.  “Sherlock, you CANNOT do this.  You cannot kidnap innocent people and set them up as pawns in a chess game.  You cannot stoop to Moriarty’s level.”

“It’s the best chance we have, 10.  Moriarty’s playing dirty, and now we have to.  This is Sebastian Moran,” he explained.  “He happens to be Moriarty’s best hitman, and they’ve had a complicated romantic history.  Back on Earth, he was stationed to shoot John if I didn’t jump from the roof of St. Bart’s, and in the years I was in hiding, I had to track him down and kill him.  But I’ve rescued him from the moment I killed him in that world, and now I have him as a poker chip.  He’s my lucky charm, as it were.”

10 lunged at him while 11 and Rose looked on in horror.  “Do you realize what you’ve DONE?” 10 yelled.  “You created a paradox—you’ve saved the life of a man condemned to die.  Now, because of you, the universe is falling apart!”

“WAKE UP, DOCTOR,” Sherlock retorted.  “The universe already was falling apart because of Moriarty.  If this plan works, everything will fall back into place.”

“And if it doesn’t, all of time and space will fall apart because of you.  Billions upon billions will suffer and die.”

“It’s the only chance any of us have,” Sherlock explained tersely.  “Not just for John and River, but for everyone.  If Moriarty wins, he will destroy the Doctor and move on until the entire universe is under his control for his sick little games.  We _cannot_ allow this to happen.  I _will not_ let this happen.”

11 looked fiercer and angrier than he’d ever been in his life.  “I never should have taken you with me,” he whispered.  “You’re going to kill us all.”

“Have a little faith, Doctor.  Worse in your life has happened.  And trust me, with the tearing and ripping I had to do to get Moran, I made sure there was a back-up plan.  But let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Rose shook her head.  “No time to argue, then.  Let’s make the trade now.  Come on, gents, let’s get to Moriarty and fix this mess.”

They all trudged into the TARDIS together when Sherlock mentioned, “Oh, I should probably tell you—since the universe is collapsing and it really doesn’t matter, I happened to be in the neighborhood and I picked up some friends.  I figured it wasn’t a bad idea to have a few extra hands around.”

11 gasped when he saw two familiar, beloved faces at the console.

“You numpty,” Amy Pond said with a flashy grin, “I bet you thought you’d never see us again.”

“Amy!  Rory!” 11 ran and embraced them.  “How the hell did you get in here?”

“Sherlock Holmes, of course,” Rory said, shaking his head.  “Bloody Sherlock Holmes.  You really upgraded companions.”

“How did he know where to find you?”

“I deduced it all from your limited explanations of what happened to them.  You said you couldn’t go to New York to retrieve them without blowing up the city, so it was obvious.  I sent them a telegram from a neighboring city.”

11 hugged them close and laughed.  “I am _so_ happy to see you two.  Did Sherlock fill you in?”

“We’ve been briefed, Captain,” Amy joked.  “Now, let’s go save my granddaughter.  I’m going to be the hottest grandma in the universe.”

“ _Please_ never say that again,” Rory groaned as Amy hit him on the shoulder.


	11. Chapter 11

“Are you positive this is going to work?” John asked.  “After all, it’s a bit loony.  Furthermore, your husband is going to freak out when he hears this.”

            “Trust me, he’ll understand.  Besides, he owes me after letting Clara plant a big one on him.  I’ve already used hallucinogenic lipstick on a slew of guards and I have two guns under the bed, and we can spring our way out after they open the door.  Besides, Jim will like it so much that he might actually let us live.”

            “For someone about to commit adultery, you’re awfully chipper.”

            River rolled her eyes.  “A snog is not exactly adultery, sweetie.  Everyone knows that an easy way to prompt delivery is to get a girl hot and bothered.  I’m sure you’ll be up to the task.”

            “Why exactly do you need to start getting contractions?”

            “They don’t open the doors for anything except doctor check-ups, unfortunately.  And my vitals are being monitored, so I can’t fake the contractions.  Pucker up, dear,” River said with a crinkle between her eyes.

            John rolled his own eyes and cringed.  This felt wrong on so many levels.  “I mean, you’re a nice-looking lady and all, but you’re married to my friend.”

            “Just shut it, will you?” she cried in an exasperated voice and forced John’s mouth to hers for a few moments.  John tried desperately to forget who he was kissing, thinking that it meant nothing and would only help them escape.  Miraculously enough, he wasn’t enjoying this kiss at all.  It felt too off-limits, and however great River’s curls were, they weren’t a match for the dark, untamed curls of one detective.

            It took them ten minutes of forced kissing until River clutched her side.  “Ooh, that did it.  Just barely, mind you.  No offense, but I don’t think you’re doing that right at all.”

            “Shut up.”  He put a hand on her abdomen.  “Contractions?”

            “Small and manageable, thank goodness.  But it will alert Kovarian and Moriarty.”  River grabbed a gun from underneath her bed and charged it.  “Ready for company, Dr. Watson?”

            As soon as she said it, a gang of guards opened through the tightly sealed door and John beat them down, grabbing River by the arm and shoving her behind him as they ran (waddled) out of the cell and down the path in John’s memory.  Every guard they encountered was met with the unfriendly end of a rifle and either ran in fear or ran to get help.

            “What fun!” cooed River as the guards ran willy-nilly.  “You know, you’re very sexy when you’re intense and protective and all that.  I can see why he likes you.”

            “Focus, River.  Keep in mind that you have both a powerful blaster and a fragile baby.”

            “Spoilsport.  The baby’s enjoying herself.”

            They made it to the flight deck, where Rive selected a small ship for them to escape in and pilot back to Pete’s World, when they heard the inevitable slow claps.

            “Bravo…bravo…bravissimi, really,” Moriarty said glumly.  “Guys, why are you leaving my party?  We haven’t even brought out the piñata yet.”

            John stepped in front of River, trying not to show how scared stiff he was.  “It was me, Moriarty.  I forced her into running away with me; she had nothing to do with it.”

            “Bo-riiiing.  Nice try, though.  The kissing was a nice touch, River,” the criminal commended her.  “Very naughty.  I’m sure your husband will love watching the footage we have of that for the next seven hundred years.  We could make a soundtrack for it and everything.”

            River’s blue eyes flashed with anger.  “The Doctor knows I would never do anything to hurt him.”

            “Oh, River, River, River.  You’ve been such fun to watch.  Hallucinogenic lipstick… Very cute.  See, we enjoyed watching you try and escape.  After all, there’s nothing worse than a victim who plays the victim.  But you made it too easy and now you’ve gone and ruined my dinner.  So I think I’m going to ruin you.”

            Jim looked utterly bored as he snapped his fingers, calling an onslaught of guards to surround the two escapees.  They grabbed them roughly and John pushed against them as best he could.  “Don’t hurt her!  She has a baby!  Moriarty, she’s useless to you without that baby, so tell them to stop!”  
            “John, I’m fine!” she insisted, keeping her hands over her belly.  John pushed his way past the guards and put a hand on her shoulder, helping her steer her way through as the guards led them back to their cell.

            “You don’t need to worry, River.  They’re coming for us.  Let’s try and stay put until they get here, okay?  You’re in too much danger.”

            “Stop treating me like I’m some damsel in distress,” she huffed, looking thoroughly disgruntled until her face scrunched up in pain.  She bit her lip.

            John noticed.  “What’s happening?”

            “Another contraction.  Don’t worry about it, sweetie—the last one was twenty minutes ago.  We’re not on the clock yet.”

            “Are you going into labor?”

            “Not yet, John—please, we have enough stress as it is.  The baby and I are fine.  I would never do anything to endanger her.” River kept biting her lip until it passed, and then a look of relief washed over her.  “See?  Good as new.”

            “Not for long, I’m afraid,” Moriarty drawled in front of them.  Rather than going to their cell, he led the soldiers and his captives to a new room on the ship—it was circular, with a floor extending only around the circumference of the room.  The very center, with a twenty foot diameter, was completely floorless, showing a long shaft of emptiness that extended into the darkness below.  In the epicenter of the hole, a small, floating square bobbed almost cheerily.

            Moriarty bowed.  “Time for a new game.  Really easy, this one.  Welcome to the garbage chute.  It’s pretty nasty in here, I know.  The hole in the floor is for the trash, which collects at the bottom of this lovely little tunnel.  Every once in a while, we let out the trash into space, but for our purposes tonight, we’re only going to need the lovely hole.”  He narrowed his eyes.  “You knew you were being watched, River.  Why on earth would you try and escape?”

            She didn’t answer, only continuing to glare.

            Moriarty shrugged.  “No skin off my nose.  We’re going to start with you, then.  I know it was your plan, dear, however futile and cute it was before it failed so miserably.  All you have to do, River, is stand on that little square.”  He snapped, and it floated over to him.  “Easy, right?  Well, easy unless you lose your balance or take a fall.  It’s an endurance game, you see?”

            River backed away and threw off her guards, wrenching a gun from one of them.  “If you think I’m going to play your sick games, Moriarty, you have another thing coming, dear.”

            “Oh, don’t be cross. We all have guns here.  One shot at me and you’ll have just enough time to regret what you’ve done before you and your brat are dead on the ground.”

            She lowered the gun and hung her head in defeat, her curls falling over.  “I’m not going to be able to do it.  I’ll fall.  I can barely keep standing for this long, can’t you see?  _Where is your compassion?_ ”

            “Probably the same place as your mercy.  You’re the one who made a Dalek beg for yours.  Very stylish, by the way.”

            The guards pushed her onto the small square, only big enough for two feet, while River struggled to protect her stomach.  The square levitated toward the center of the chute, where River balanced precariously.  Her face was ghostly green with terror, and she tried to keep her hands out to stay balanced.  Her huge belly made her sway, but she struggled to stay up.  Falling wasn’t an option.

            John saw her strain to keep upright, knowing it was only a matter of time before River lost her strength.  She was pregnant, for goodness’ sake, and it was cruel to ask her to keep standing for what could be hours or even days.  River wouldn’t survive—she’d collapse of exhaustion even if she managed to keep her balance.  “Moriarty, please—I’ll do anything.  Do you want me to beg?  I’m begging, see?  Don’t make her do this, bring her back.  I’ll go on it for her!” John pleaded.  “Come on, are you doing this so the Doctor will see?  The Doctor’s already coming, and you can’t afford to lose River as a bargaining chip, but you can lose me!  Put me on that pedestal, and if I fall, you don’t lose anything.”

            Moriarty considered it.  “Heroic.  But River deserves punishment for her actions, don’t you think?  Spare the rod…”

            “MORIARTY!” he roared.  “Let me take her place!  Let me do this!  You still get your game!  Punish me!  She’s pregnant, Moriarty, she can’t do this!  You’re going to kill her!”

            “I don’t care.”

            “The Doctor will!  He’s never going to submit to you if she’s dead.  You know that.  Switch us!”  
            “Oh, fine.”  Moriarty snapped his fingers and River slowly came back, whimpering in fear.  “You’re such a drama queen, Johnny.  All right, River, step off.  The good doctor will take your place.”

            River shook her head.  “I can’t let you do this.  You have as much a chance of losing as I do.”

            “You have to protect her,” John said.  “Besides, if I meet you in the future, I can’t exactly die now, can I?”  He stepped onto the square without being forced and it moved to the center of the chute.

            “It doesn’t always work like that!  Time can be rewritten, John, especially in a universe that’s coming apart at the seams!  If you die, there’s a chance that all of that future will be erased and we won’t have met.  You’ll just be dead!”  
            “It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

            The pedestal paused in the middle of the hole, and John stood his ground, giving a level eye to Moriarty.

            Moriarty smiled.  “Take River back to her cell, if you please, boys.  Now we wait.”

            John nodded in agreement.  “Now we wait.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

            “All right,” 11 said, procuring a gavel from his pocket and slamming it on the table in the TARDIS war room.  “The meeting of Team Sexy has officially been called to order.”

            Amy frowned.  “Team Sexy? I thought we were Team Cool Gingers.”

            Rory shook his head.  “You’re the only ginger here.  We’re clearly Team Foxy.”

            10 nodded in agreement.  “Definitely Team Foxy.  We outnumber you all.”

            “Team names are so dull and a waste of time,” Sherlock groaned.  “Besides.  Team Deduction Seduction is clearly the best name for this operation.  It combines elements of intelligence and your peculiar need to justify your looks.”

            “Team TARDIS,” Rose said affirmatively.  “That’s the end of it.  Come on, what’s the plan?  Let’s just get on with it.”

            11 huffed.  “Team TARDIS then.  We have Sebastian Moran, and we need River and John.  I say we do what we do best—walk in and make it up as we go along.  We need to negotiate, and it’s as simple as that.  By the time we get there, they’ll already see us coming and we can get right to it.”

            Rose and Amy both said, “Sounds like a plan,” and they smiled at each other.

            “Pond.  Amy Pond.”

            “Tyler.  Rose Tyler.  Love your hair.”

            “Love yours.  Who’s the hottie holding your hand?”

            “My husband.  Human version of the Doctor.  Who’s the bloke with his arm around you?”

            “My husband.  The Last Centurion.”

            “I saw a documentary about him on the telly—did he really stay with that box for 2,000 years?”  
            “Yeah—I was inside it.”

            “Wow.”  Rose looked suitably impressed.  “I like you guys.”

            Amy smiled back.  “I like you, too.  Looks like Team TARDIS is ready for action.”

            10 and Rory looked very awkward.  “You have a great wife,” 10 mumbled.

            “Yeah, you two.”

            “We should double sometime.”

            “Er…sure.”

            Sherlock slammed his hands on the table.  “Enough of this team-bonding.  We can all have perfectly pedestrian little dates over tea _after_ we get John and River back.”

            Rose clapped her hands.  “And then we can have quadruple dates!”

            While 11 looked like he might actually enjoy that prospect, Sherlock looked like he was about to choke.  “John and I are not…we are _not_ …”

            “You so are.”

            “Well, even if we were, we would not be the kind of trite, overly sappy couple that did little happy claps when presented with the option of going to see a film with a couple of boring married couples.”

            Amy and Rory stood up.  “Excuse us?”

            11 ignored them all and strolled on to the console room.  With a flick of his wrist, the TARDIS locked onto the biological coordinates of River and John and triangulated a position.  “It’s okay, River,” he said.  “I’m coming to save our baby.”

            The TARDIS landed with a thump on some cold, metallic floor.  The team met up in the console room, and with nods and smiles of encouragement, they opened the door and walked onto Moriarty’s ship, right in front of a crowd of guards.

            “Hello, gents!” crowed 11, brandishing a sonic screwdriver and his most resplendent fez.  “I’m the Doctor, and I’m here to rescue my wife and my baby girl.  Now, be a couple of ducks for me and take me straight to Jim Moriarty!”  He stared at the ground a few feet in front of him.  “Why is there a hole in this floor?”

            “It’s a garbage chute,” 10 realized.  “This must be a Pantelopian cruise ship.  Does Moriarty like to hijack vehicles?”

            “Nope,” a slimy voice said behind the guards, and the ocean of soldiers parted to reveal a short man with his hands tucked boyishly into his suit pockets.  “I just happen to have a lot of people in Pantelope who owed me favor, and I do so love to travel in style.  Hello, Doctor.  Or should I say Doctors?  And oooh, you’ve brought your merry band of friends!  I have a merry band of my own.  Of course, they’re a little busy at the moment.”

            “Where’s River?” 11 shouted, charging forward.

            He was stopped from punching Moriarty right in the face by Sherlock’s choked scream.  “Doctor, stop!  It’s John!”

            “What?”

            Everyone’s attention was drawn to the center of the hole, where John was standing.  He balanced only on a small, floating square, gritting his teeth and clenching his hands to cut focus away from the pain he was feeling.  Sweat poured down his temples.  “Hi, everyone.  It’s fine—I’m fine.  Focus on the game, okay?”

            Sherlock struggled to keep his cool and continue using his head.  There was no point in trying to fight the guards.  They had to complete the transfer.  “Stay where you are, John.  We’re going to fix this.”

            “Well, I can’t bloody well leave, can I?”

            Sherlock smirked.  John was fine.  “Moriarty, we’re here to facilitate a trade.  NO more games, no more mindbending.  Just a simple exchange of your hostages for ours.”

            Moriarty hissed.  “I don’t like it.”

            “You’re not supposed to like it.  You’re supposed to agree.  Where is River?”

            “In her cell, being a good little girl.”  Moriarty gave 11 a patronizing smile.  “She disobeyed me.  She had to be punished.”

            “Calm, Doctor,” Sherlock continued.  “Don’t ruin the bloody negotiation.  We want John and River, and you’re going to want what we have.”

            “Oh, this _is_ charming.  Do you have someone you think I’d like?  My mum, my dad?  Maybe an old girlfriend?” He clapped his hands together.  “Oh, go on, impress me!  And you said the games were over.  The fun is just beginning, Sherly.”

            Rory and 10 lugged out an unconscious form, blindfolded and gagged and bound.  They laid him in front of Sherlock’s feet, yards away from Moriarty.

            The criminal cringed visibly.  Yellow teeth peeked through as he snapped, “You…how did you find…but you killed him?”

            “Sebastian Moran.  Your primary assassin while you were grounded on Earth.  Not nearly as clever as you, no, but ruthless and ready to kill.  You valued his unparalleled marksmanship and eventually grew to want his companionship.  No one else understood how little Jimmy could throw away the value of human life so quickly…except him.”

            “You’re going to pay for this.”

            “I did kill him, back on Earth.  After my fall.  And the best thing is, he didn’t see me coming.”  Sherlock laughed in Moriarty’s direction, the pain of it driving right into Moriarty’s skull.  “But now that you’ve made a big gaping hole in time and space, we’ve made a lot of changes.  Here’s your precious Sebastian, Jim.  He’s all yours, whether you want to shag him or kill him yourself.  Give us River and John, and you get Moran back.”

            If Moriarty’s eyes could have darkened completely to black, this would have been the moment for it.  His voice only got softer as he got angrier.  “Is that really fair, Sherly?  Two people for one?”

            “You yourself think some lives are worth more than others.  Consider this our definition of a fair trade.”

            11 saw the rage glinting in Moriarty’s eyes and knew it couldn’t be good.  “Sherlock.  Stop.”

            Sherlock quit talking, worried about what he’d done, when Moriarty screamed.  It reverberated through the metal walls of the chute and made John wobble.  “John, hold on!” he yelled uselessly.

            Moriarty pressed fingers to his temples.  “You think you’re cool shit, Mr. Sherlock.  You think you’re cute because you’ve found someone I care about.  But you were right about one thing, though—I don’t value human life.  I don’t see the point.”

            With that, he pulled out a gun.  “Don’t usually like getting my hands dirty, but as you said, you have my favorite marksman.  Pity.”  Two shots were fired straight into Moran’s head.  Dark blood oozed immediately from the wounds.  Rose and Amy gasped and backed away from the body.

            “Thing is, now, you don’t have a bartering chip.  So there’s nothing you can trade with.  That’s a damn shame, too.  I was going to give you Johnny as a freebie.  Too late now—without Moran, do you think it’s really fair to keep him around?”

            Everyone froze.  Sherlock kept eye contact on John, pleading with him to wait and try somehow to stay upright.  John looked truly terrified but he kept his ground.

            Moriarty shrugged.  “Sayonara, dear.”  With a single snap of his fingers, the square dissolved into nothingness and John tumbled down the dark chute.

            Everyone on the TARDIS’ side screamed, and without missing a second, Sherlock ran to the edge of the hole and dove in after John.

 


	12. Chapter 12

John could feel the darkness eating at his limbs.  It felt acidic, slowly working through his bones and seeping out of his eyes and nose.  He couldn’t see anything but a pinpoint of light above him.

            He knew he was dying.  He had to be.  The pain he was feeling was the broken bones left in his body, pinching at vital organs and clinching his momentary death.  For a moment, he felt like Sherlock after St. Bart’s.  Funny, how irony worked.

            “Please, God,” he croaked, “let me live.  I don’t want to die…please, for him.  I have to see him again.  Please, God.”

            “Are you…quite sure…He can hear you down here?” a voice said from yards away.  John recognized the deep baritone immediately and for a glorious moment, all the darkness was pierced by light and warmth pushed the pain of broken limbs away.  “Sherlock?  What are you—oh, no.  You jumped.”

            “Obviously.”

            “Well, now…we’re no help…to anyone.”  He struggled to keep what he could make of his vision straight and took a painful breath.  “Sherlock, you shouldn’t have jumped.”

            “I couldn’t let you go alone.  Not again.”  John heard a sigh rattle in Sherlock’s broken chest.  “I’m sorry.”

            “You didn’t mean…to lose Moriarty’s dream game…  It’s fine.”

            “That’s not what I was apologizing for.”  Sherlock felt his ribs with the hand he couldn’t feel a break in.  “I’m pretty sure I’ve broken at least ten of these.  One’s pierced my…intestines.  Lovely.  I’m going to die in about two minutes.”

            John blinked back tears, unsure of their origin.  “Don’t be…a sod… Let’s plan something.”

            “You’ve pierced a lung.  You probably have less time than I do.”

            “Then stop…messing around…”

            John focused on breathing in and out, but each breath was more ragged and painful than the last.  Through the haze of hurt, he could hear a scraping sound, and in seconds he could feel the warmth coming off Sherlock’s body.  “You…shouldn’t have moved…”

            “I wanted us to be together for this.”

            “Right.  The end…” John closed his eyes.  “I bloody well wish…it would get here faster…  It’s taking forever.”

            “Don’t wish that.”  A hand closed around John’s, gently squeezing but stopping when John hissed at the pain.  His hand was definitely shattered.  “Please, don’t.  I just wanted to say, before this…happens…that…well, there was something I was going to say to you.  Before.”

            “If you say it…it means goodbye.”

            “This _is_ goodbye,” Sherlock insisted.  “And I _do_ love you.”

            “Sherlock…”

            “Don’t fight me on this.  I bloody love you, all right? And we’re dying in a minute, and I love you more than anything in my about-to-cease life.  So sod off.”

            John smiled the smallest and lightest of smiles and squeezed back with his broken hand.  “The feeling’s…mutual.”

            Sherlock chuckled to himself.  “John Watson, nonchalant to the last.  It’s been a pleasure.”

            “An honor.”

            The men held broken hands and let their breathing slow down and their eyes adjust to the oncoming darkness as they lived their last thirty seconds together.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

            Everyone above couldn’t move at all.  11 and Rose still held their hands out, as if that would somehow stop Sherlock and John from falling.  Moriarty was cackling at his good fortune—he’d managed to break two new toys in one fell swoop.

            The game had shifted somehow.  Without their poker chip, they’d lost the leverage they’d had, and now Sherlock and John were dead at the bottom of the garbage chute.  Their shock at this assured loss froze them in place.

            10 moved first, taking advantage of the inactivity.  He grabbed Rose by the waist and slung her over his shoulder.  “Come on, Rose.  We’re leaving.”

            “What?  No, you can’t just leave!” Amy argued.  “The Doctor needs you!”

            “I _am_ the Doctor,” 10 said.  “We both are, but at least I’m not idiotic enough to stay here.  You all can fight this madman and try and win, but I know when to cut my losses.  John and Sherlock are dead, and if you’re all smart, you’ll come with us.”

            “NO! No, no, _no_!” Rose screamed, banging his fists on 10’s back.  “Doctor, you can’t do this!  This isn’t right!  He needs us!  We have to save River!”

            11 watched them go with a look of utter hopelessness.  His mind was racing.  The game looked lost, but River and his baby were still out there, and he had to save them.  It couldn’t end like this.  River didn’t die this way, and neither did he.  Right?  
            10 marched her straight into the TARDIS and slammed the door shut, taking away their last chance at escaping, and it angrily wheezed away, petulant at being taken from those who needed it.

            Moriarty flexed his fingers.  “Sorry about blowing up like that, Doc.  Still getting the hang of this human stuff.  Apparently the emotions make you pretty violent.”

            Amy and Rory walked up to the Doctor and slid their hands in his.  “We’ll fight with you,” Rory said.  “Whatever it takes.  She’s our daughter.”

            “Family reunions are so touching, aren’t they?  But I’m already growing bored.”  Moriarty gave a wave to his guards, who left the room.  “See, darling?  It’s just you and me, now, and your pets.  You’ve lost your ride home, you’ve lost your friends, and I’m going to make damned sure you lose your precious wife, too.  It’s a shame, too—I would have loved a Time Lord baby.  She would have been so useful.”

            The Doctor gave him his hardest look, trying not to break under the pressure.  He had to have a plan, somehow.  There had to be a plan.  What were his options?  What could he use?

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

            John’s ragged breaths got slower and slower, and Sherlock knew he had seconds.  There was so much he wanted to say that was screaming at the back of his throat to be revealed, but he wanted this last moment to be peaceful.  Anything he wanted to say to John was something he already knew.

            Instead, he let his eyes adjust to his surroundings and felt everything around him.  The cracked and shattered bones were maddeningly painful, as were the bumps on the bottom of the garbage heap.  There was cold metal beneath them on the floor, and a few yards away, a red light blinked next to a blue one.  There was a sealed door nearby, probably for the garbagemen to come in and work with the trash before sending it into space.

            The red light and blue light revealed buttons underneath them.

            Sherlock wished he could make something of it, but the garbage underneath his hip was pressing painfully and he was too focused on that feeling.

           

Wait.

            Something was off.  Garbage chutes were for garbage, so there should be garbage beneath them, but he could only feel the cold of the floor.  Conclusion: the trash must have been removed, and probably out into deep space.  One of the buttons must be what a worker would push to send the trash out.

            So, what was under his hip?

            With a valiant effort, Sherlock grabbed with his good hand for the object beneath him and found to his intense joy that his gun had been in his pocket the entire time.

            All right.  So he had a gun.  What could he do with it?  He could shoot it up, alerting everyone that they were alive, but they were in no way ready to rescue them, and they wouldn’t get here in time.  There was another option.

            John wheezed out the smallest of whines.  “What…are…you doing?”

            “Possibly saving us.” Sherlock came up with the best chance they had and aimed a shaking hand at the red button.  “I’ll explain later, unless we die.”

            “I…trust you.”

            Sherlock shot at the red button and hit it straight on, and all the air was sucked out of the chamber and into the inky darkness of deep space.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

            Everything happened very quickly, then.  Things had been at a standstill after John and Sherlock fell and 10 and Rose left, leaving two masterminds to plan and Amy and Rory to wait, but then everything changed.

            Suddenly, the air was pulled with gargantuan force out of the garbage chute, pulling Moriarty and the remains of the team down to their knees and threatening to drag them out of the chute.  The skin was practically sucked off their faces with the force of the pull, but the Doctor managed to grab a metal bar on the side of the wall.  Amy and Rory held on to him.

            Like a miracle, a familiar whoosh could be heard through the screech of air leaving the tunnel, and a big blue box banged its way over to the Doctor and opened its doors, where an outstretched hand pulled Amy, Rory, and the Doctor inside the time machine into fresh air.

            The Doctor gasped in relief and took in huge breathfuls of air into his lungs.  He blinked rapidly and saw 10 standing over him with a cheeky grin.  “Handy!  How did you—”

            “You didn’t really think I’d abandon you, did you?”

            “Well, things weren’t looking very good back there, to be honest.”  11 shook 10’s hand.  “Thank you, Doctor.  I really appreciate it.  Why did you leave?”

            10 beamed at being called the Doctor, but he had things to explain.  “I can tell you all later, but we’re nowhere near finished with this.  You need to come with me.”

            The team ran behind 10 as he led them to the sick bay, where Rose was tending worriedly to two distorted bodies that looked very familiar.

            “Sherlock!  John!” 11 cried, rushing to their bedside with a relieved sigh.  He took in their broken limbs, which stood out in odd, alarming angles.  “They must have fallen six stories, at least.  Are they alive?”

            “Yeah, we got them on the TARDIS systems as soon as we caught them, but they’re unconscious now.  On top of all the broken bones, they’re bleeding internally.  They were seconds away from death when we nabbed them.”

            11 smoothed a few sweaty curls off of Sherlock’s forehead.  He noticed that Sherlock and John were holding hands, even in their comas.  “Good on you, mate,” he whispered to Sherlock.  He straightened up.  “So, they’re alive.  The TARDIS will keep them in their stasis, but those broken bones need to be healed.  I have regeneration energy…”

            Amy shook her head.  “River would kill you—you can’t just use your regenerations on people willy-nilly.  You might die, too.”

            “Trust me, there’s more than enough for broken bones and organs.  It’s just what I would use in an accident if I was hurt.  That sort of injury regeneration doesn’t run out—it’s only the fatal injuries that have a number of cures.”  11 spread his palms over Sherlock and John’s chests and willed the glowing energy to come out of his hands.  He felt the warmth of it and pushed it out, despite his exhaustion, and the golden glow settled into their bodies.  The sound of bones un-crunching themselves and mending filled with room, and the two renewed bodies of the Englishmen relaxed and breathed normally.

            The group sighed in relief as Sherlock and John’s eyes fluttered open.  “It worked,” Sherlock breathed, feeling at his chest for injuries that had magically disappeared.

            John looked equally surprised.  “We’re alive.  You fixed the broken bones, Doctor?”

            “Pretty cool, huh?”

            “Very cool.  Great.  So it won’t hurt Sherlock very much if I do this!” John said, sitting up and slapping Sherlock right in the face.

            Sherlock got up and rubbed his cheek.  “What the bloody hell did you do that for?!?”

            “ _You nearly got yourself killed!!!_  You jumped into the chute after me, oh, that was _really brilliant_ , and then you shot a random button that could have incinerated us but instead took us into the vacuum of space, where you had no idea of knowing if the TARDIS would be there to save us!”

            “Of course the TARDIS would be there.  I’d made sure of it earlier today!”

            “You…you…” John licked his lips and tried to remember why he was angry.  “Sherlock… Oh, sod it all!”

            And with newly mended hands and arms, John reached over and pulled Sherlock by his curly hair to his face and kissed him thoroughly.  Sherlock looked intensely surprised but quickly caught on, wrapping his arms around John’s solid frame and kissing him senseless.

            Their crowd of onlookers smiled indulgently at the couple until they realized that John and Sherlock were nowhere close to finishing, so 10 cleared his throat and said, “Right, then.  I’ll just, er, explain everything in the console room and we can work from there.  We still have a rescue to plan.  Boys?”

            John and Sherlock ignored him completely, and their snog got even more passionate—John tangled his fingers in Sherlock’s curls and Sherlock was attempting to pin John down to the hospital bed.

            “Oi!  Boys!  We’re in the middle of a battle!”

            “We almost died,” John murmured in a voice that would have sounded thoroughly annoyed if they could really hear it, but he was still too busy kissing Sherlock to get any kind of inflection out.

            “Well spotted, John.  But we sort of have to rescue River Song and ensure the defeat of a—oh, bloody hell.  No shagging in the sick bay, all right?  Everyone else, console room.  We’ll leave these chaps alone.”

            Amy looked a little reluctant to leave, even as everyone filed out with a giggle, until Rory flicked her wrist to get her attention.  “Honestly, Amy, we’ve been married _how long_ , and you’re watching two blokes go at it.”

            She rolled her eyes as they all assembled around the blue console.  “Wha’?  They’re hot.  At least I wasn’t joinin’ them.”

            “All right,” 10 announced, “we have to go back and find River, and we don’t know what happened with Moriarty.  I propose we split up.  Amy and Rory, you go with 11 and find River.  Rose and I will search the ship for Moriarty.  We meet back here in an hour.”

            “Why an hour?” Rory asked.  “And exactly how did you know to come back for us?  I’m still really confused.”

            “An hour because—well, it’s all a bit timey-wimey and I really don’t have the time to explain it to you—”

            “The universe was falling apart because of the hole in time and space that Moriarty created, especially with the paradox that Sherlock created by saving Moran from being killed by…well, Sherlock.  But since Moran’s dead again, the universe has regained normalcy, in a way.  It’s trying to patch itself back up again,” 11 explained for 10.  “We need to get out of here before the hole in the worlds closes up forever, especially since Bo is still on the other side.  After we pick up River, we still have to get Bo, drop 10 and Rose off at home, and then give us enough time to go back to our world.”

            Rory nodded.  “Right.  Yeah.  That makes loads of sense.”

            “Oh, Rory the Roman, nothing ever makes sense with us around.”

            “What about Sherlock and John?” Rose asked.  “What do they do?”

            “They are still healing, so they should really just stay put.  They can guard the TARDIS.” 

“And how did you know to get them?  Come on, we need explanations for this, okay?” Rory plowed on.

“Simple, actually—Sherlock gave me coordinates, a time, and a place to be before we got on the ship.  I didn’t know why he needed me to be there, but I trusted it was integral to the plan.  That’s why I faked a getaway with Rose—sorry about that, by the way.”

“And how did Sherlock know he’d need saving?”

“That’s what I’m trying to work out.”  10 considered it.  “Remember when he came back in the TARDIS and said he’d been in there a few days?  He got the Ponds, he saved Moran, and he said he had a back-up plan, too.  My guess is that he went to the future and saw what would happen to them, and he wanted to make sure he was saved.”

11 shook his head.  “He’s absolutely brilliant.”  He went to the sick bay and told the still-snogging boys to sit tight and watch the TARDIS, unperturbed when they didn’t respond.

10 piloted the TARDIS back inside the ship, this time trying to get a lock on River’s coordinates.  “All right, 11—she’s down the corridor.  Go get her,” he said with an encouraging grin.

            11 flashed past them, tugging Amy and Rory with him to retrieve his family while Rose grabbed 10’s hand and they ran down the ship to find Moriarty.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

            John was certain that he was flying.  There was no other explanation for the speed at which his pulse was moving, racing through each individual vein with alarming swiftness.  Well, there was one more explanation—he had virtually come back to life from a hopeless death and woken up to the face of the man he’d loved passionately and secretly (so secretly he hadn’t known until it was almost too late) for years.  And now they were kissing, with Sherlock bloody Holmes hovering over him and plying his lips with his own.  It was so gorgeous John thought he would die all over again.

            Sherlock broke away first.  “We have to go.”

            “We’re not going _anywhere_.”  John propped himself up on his elbow.  “We have to rest.  And 11 put us in charge of the TARDIS.  Just sit tight.  Don’t you think we’ve had enough near-death experiences today?”

            They stared at each other and burst out laughing at the silliness of the statement.  “We need to go,” Sherlock insisted.  “Come on, 10 and Rose will be looking for Moriarty, but if they find him, no one will know what to do with him.  I have to destroy him, once and for all.”

            “Wait.”  John took hold of Sherlock’s hand.  “I’ll come with you, but before you go, let’s please just say what we need to say before we’re, you know, dying and bleeding and bruised and not really in the mood for romance.”

            Sherlock wrinkled his nose.  “Romance?  I’m not really a fan of that.”

            “You know what I mean.”

            “Well, I suppose I could be persuaded.”  He crossed his arms and looked up at the ceiling.  “I suppose I should admit that I’m very much in love with you.  I have been since you saved my life from the cabbie, thought it’s taken me years to figure it all out.  And I’m not…good at this.  I’m not good at feelings.  And I don’t know what this means for us, or what you’re going to expect of me.”

            “We’re going to be the same as we always were, Sherlock.  Nothing’s changed.  But now we don’t have to deny what everyone else knew: I love you, too.  I always will.  And by the way, I’m not scared.”

            Sherlock smirked.  “I know you’re not.  You’re never scared.  But since you’re expecting me to do so, I’ll ask.  Why?”

            “Because everyone’s met us, in the future.  And we’re together then, you know.  The Doctor’s been dropping some anvil-sized hints.”

            “He has indeed.”  Sherlock kissed John once on the forehead and once, very sweetly, on the lips.  “Ready for another run, Dr. Watson?”

            “You couldn’t stop me.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

            The Doctor had spent his entire life running from something or other.  It was something he was used to at this point.  But he never thought he’d be running so desperately fast toward something.  Here he was, flying down the corridor with the Ponds in tow, screaming for his wife.  “River!  River, we’re here!  Where are you?!?”

            He threw open the doors one by one until the final room, which he opened breathlessly with the world’s hugest smile.  “River, I thought I’d never see you again!”

            There, in the middle of the stark white cell, River’s head lolled on the shoulder of Jim Moriarty, who sat on the floor with a gun to her temple.  He gave them a senseless grin and waved to them with the revolver.  “Evening, folks.  Come for the finale?”

            The Doctor tried not to choke at the sight of Moriarty’s spidery limbs wrapped around River’s lifeless body.  He sat behind her with one hand firmly above her bloated torso—he’d only been gone about a week, so _how_ was she really that pregnant?—and her head trickled blood at a wound on her forehead.  He’d smacked her over the head with the butt of the gun.

            Moriarty shook his head.  “No funny business anymore.  Daddy’s getting bored now…  Just come over to my side, Doc, and I’ll hand River over to her parents.  They can take care of her and the brat, and you can enjoy a life of eternal servitude knowing you did the boring, heroic thing.”

            The Doctor didn’t move right away.  His eyes didn’t move from the scene in front of him, but his thoughts darted back and forth, trying to scrape up an escape route.  Moriarty watched and pressed the barrel of the gun further into River’s skin.  “Aren’t you tired of the games, Doctor?  Don’t make me shoot her.  I don’t want her brains all over this suit.”

            River whimpered unconsciously, and the Doctor’s shoulder slumped.  “Fine.  Give her to her parents.  I’ll go with you.”

            Moriarty didn’t remove the gun.  “I didn’t hear you…”  
            “ _Moriarty!!!_ ” he hissed.  “I said you _win_.  Let her go.  Please, I’ll do anything, please, please, please…”

            “Boring.  But fine.”  He let go of River and let her slump onto the floor, where Rory dashed to pick up her swollen body and carry her away.  The Doctor felt his heart being pulled away as Rory carried her to the other side of the room and immediately checked her head wound and her belly with Amy.

            River would be fine, he convinced himself.  She would live.  She would raise their child to be a good woman.  He just wouldn’t be there to see it.

            He walked slowly and reluctantly to Moriarty.  “Here I am, Jim.  You have what you want.”

            Moriarty looked absolutely high on the thrill of his victory.  “Yes, I do.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

            Sherlock pocketed a piece of paper and the bag he’d been careful to keep safe during this journey and led John by the hand outside the TARDIS.  Completely on time, a new, smoking TARDIS materialized as soon as they exited, this one on the other side of the hall.

            John’s brow furrowed.  “Why is there—”

            “Long story, dear.”  Sherlock strode up to the TARDIS and knocked on the door.  “Open up, Holmes.  I have information for you.”

            The smoldering door opened to reveal a much cleaner-looking Sherlock.  “It’s you—so we’re still alive, then?”

            “If you do what I tell you.  You’re from the past, then?”

            “I just left 10 and Rose’s house.”  Sherlock the Younger spied John.  “John!  We got you back!  Fantastic!”

            “Focus,” Sherlock from the Present said.  “You’ve already planned your bargaining chips, yes?”

            “I’m about to go to the Ponds.  I thought I’d try and pop into the future and see how good our chances were.”

            Sherlock-Present handed him a piece of paper.  “You’ll need to give this to 10.”

            Sherlock-Past raised an eyebrow.  “These are coordinates.”

            “Tell him, when you’re alone, that you need him to ensure that he has the TARDIS there at precisely that time.  Otherwise, we don’t have a chance.”

            Sherlock-Past nodded.  “I’ll give it to him.”  He closed the doors and fizzed away.

            “Am I supposed to get what happened there?” John asked, sliding his hand into Sherlock’s and holding on tight.

            “Soon.  Come on, they’re going to need us.  If I know Moriarty, he didn’t run away—he went to the epicenter.  10 and Rose are wasting their time and they’ll go back to the TARDIS, but 11 will need our help.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

            He didn’t exactly know what happened next, or what Moriarty’s plans were, but he stood and faced him like a man and refused to shed any tears in his presence.  The Doctor was doing what was right for his family, and River would understand that.

            “Oooooh,” oozed Moriarty as he placed his hands squarely on the Doctor’s shoulders, “what am I going to do with you first?”

            “Don’t.  You.  Touch Him.”  Sherlock was already in the doorway with a dangerous silence, with John standing unflinchingly at his side.

            Moriarty exploded with joy.  “Sherly!  This is the best day _ever_ …not.  How the hell did you survive?”

            “I have friends in high places.”

            “Friends…”  Moriarty sneered.  “Oh, I see.  You’ve gone soft now.  One little measly snog with some fat ex-soldier and you’re a ‘family man’.”

            Sherlock almost started at that, but John stopped him.  “He isn’t worth it, Sherlock.  Do what you came here to do.”

            The Doctor tried to step around Moriarty.  “What’s going on?”

            “He’s going to let you go, Doctor.  Along with all of us.  Right this minute, before he’s destroyed.”

            “And why would I do that?” Moriarty asked.  “Go on.  Impress me.”

            Sherlock smiled a ghostly Cheshire grin.  “Do you remember how you threatened to burn the heart out of me?”

            “With relish.”

            “Well, I took a leaf out of your book, dear Jim.  Went on a little spin in the TARDIS and went back to the rooftop of St. Bart’s, before you regenerated.  You were just lying on the ground.  It was almost sweet, how vulnerable you look when you have a bullet in your brain.”  Sherlock pulled a small Ziploc bag out of his pocket.  “I burned you.  Back in that time.  I took your body and I burnt it before you had the chance to regenerate, so you’re officially dead in that world.  And I’m sure you know a thing or two about paradox…”

            The Doctor felt a buzz that Sherlock was on to something.

            “Sherlock, you bad boy.  You got your hands dirty—was it fun to mess around with my body before your marred it?” Moriarty flirted on.

            “This bag contains some of your ashes, Moriarty.  You know, I don’t have a clue what happens if you touch the remains of your own dead body, but it can’t be pretty, and I’m sure it doesn’t have a happy ending for you.”

            Everyone stood at a standstill.  Moriarty looked around and then rolled his eyes.  “Fine!  Go!  Save your precious brat, Doctor, we’re over.  It’s not you, it’s me…being threatened with my own ashes.  A touch brilliant, by the way.  But that doesn’t leave us with a solution to our current problem.”

            The Doctor ran from Moriarty’s clutches to River’s side, cradling her to him and bounding away with her to the TARDIS.  “I’m coming back for you, boys!  He can’t hurt you anymore!”


	13. Chapter 13

Amy held the doors open for them as the Doctor carried River inside.  Rory was already in the sick bay, preparing everything he had in his arsenal of childbirth knowledge.

            “So, we’ll need to check for fetal stress and definitely get some fluids in her, but she and the baby should be fine.”

            The Doctor slapped Rory’s hands away and laid her down on one of the cots.  “Rory, stop babbling.  She’s going to be fine!  We’re all going to be fine!  Please, do us a favor and find Rose and Handy, before they get hurt!” 

            Rory was about to argue.  “She’s not just your wife, Doctor, she’s _our_ daughter!”

            Amy put a hand on his arm.  “I think the Doctor needs to be alone with River.  He’ll take care of her, Rory—let’s go find Rose and the hot Doctor.”

            The Doctor didn’t have the energy to tease Amy.  Instead he gingerly pulled River’s curls out of the matted blood on her forehead and assessed the damage.  So far, it didn’t look serious.  After a quick scan with his sonic, he saw that everything was in order.  With a quick burst of regeneration energy, the wound on her head healed and everything was right as rain.

            He hadn’t seen her in so long.  Somehow, even though he’d gotten an army together as quickly as he could, the time in River’s world had gone by much quicker.  She was eight months along by the sonic’s reading.  He’d missed everything important.

            River must have felt so alone.  When she first felt the baby kick, he hadn’t been there.  When she first realized there was a baby, he’d been off on some big adventure without her.  Now that he had time to sit down after a week of energetic activity, an overwhelming sense of guilt crushed him from within.

            He’d abandoned her.  He’d abandoned _them_.

            And now, for the first time in centuries, he was going to be a father.  He felt out of his depth.  Completely unprepared.  He didn’t remember the first thing about being a responsible parent.  He was always coming and going, and he could never be the type of parent that just sat around, watching.  He had to remain active.

            But that wasn’t an option.  He wasn’t going to miss out on his child’s life, not after missing her entire gestation.  No, he would be a good father, despite his terror at the prospect.  River would help him.

She looked tired, worried, sick; deep circles under her eyes betrayed sleepless nights she’d spent probably dreaming of this day.  An impossible rescue.  He propped her up and sat behind her, letting her lean on him, and his eyes immediately fell to the bump.

            _Wow_.

            He wrapped his arms around her, making sure not to touch her belly for fear of causing further damage, and willed her to wake up.  She’d kill him when he did.  Oh well.  He’d rather die a thousand deaths at the hands of River Song than watch her die again.

            And that was all it took—the warm, small wish in the Doctor’s head. Immediately feeling foreign arms around her, she woke up and jumped to action and spun around, protecting her stomach.

            “River, calm down, it’s me—”

            _SMACK!_

She slapped him hard across the face, eyes seething with rage.  “I have been waiting for _FIVE MONTHS_ for you!  When you finally get your arse around to rescuing me, you bring in the whole damned cavalry and go up against Moriarty without the barest scrap of a plan, yet somehow you scare him so much that he comes back to my cell and SMACKS ME OVER THE HEAD with a REVOLVER!!! Where the _HELL WERE_ _YOU_?”

            “River!!!”

            “Oh, and when I wake up after having BEING BLUDGEONED BY A PSYCHOPATH, I find your arms around me, feeling up my knockers!!!”

            “ _I WAS NOT!!!!”_

            “You disgusting, ridiculous idiot of a husband, if you _EVER_ —”

            But the Doctor couldn’t bear another second and leaned forward, grabbing her by the hips and smashing his lips to hers, and she gave in to kissing him immediately.

            She broke away for air first, locking her arms tightly around him.  “You found me.  Oh, I was so worried.  And when Moriarty came in…”

            “I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry.  You beautiful, mad lady, let me look at you.  I was so worried,” he said, cradling her head in his hands and feeling her hair, caressing her shoulders, pressing his forehead to hers.  “I’m sorry it took so long.  I’m sorry I couldn’t be here for you.”

            “Husband, shut up,” she chuckled, and they kissed again, lingering a little longer on the details this time.  River tangled her fingers in his hair and dragged her hands down his neck, reeling in happiness she hadn’t felt since she’d last seen him.  “I thought I’d never see you again,” she whispered against his lips.

            “Didn’t you have faith in me?”

            “Sometimes it’s easy to forget faith when you’re locked up.”

            He laughed, really laughed, sat back on his heels.  His eyes fell on the baby, again.  “You’ve…well, grown since the last time I saw you.”

            “Eight months along.”  She smiled and rested her hands over the bump, looking at it lovingly.  “Never thought I’d blow up like this.  I’m an elephant.”

            “You’re beautiful.  The most beautiful thing in the universe.”

            “Easy, sweetie—flattery won’t get you into the bedroom tonight.”

            “At this point, all I’m worried about is you.”  He thought for a moment, then pulled out the sonic and scanned her stomach.  “The baby should be safe.  The only risk would be a lack of oxygen to the blood or stress, but I think we’re good to go.”

            “I’ll say,” River said, beaming, “because the little bugger just started kicking again.  She’d been kicking up a storm all week—she must be telling her dad she’s all right.”

            The Doctor’s eyes got misty all of a sudden.  He seemed rooted to the spot, because right in front of him, there she was: his baby.

            River noticed his doubt and fear, and very gently, she reached out and took his hand and placed it on her stomach.

            “River, I don’t know if I should—”

            “Hush, now,” she whispered.  “Feel that?”

            He was silent for a moment, and then his face lit up.  “I can feel her!”

            “Little football star in there.”

            “I can feel her kicking!  Oh, this is amazing!  Oh, wow, I can’t even—”  Taking a deep breath, he pressed his ear to River’s belly button and listened.  “I don’t know what to say.”

            “You can talk to her, if you like.”

            “Did you pick a name?”

            “Not yet.  I thought I’d let you help with something in the pregnancy scheme of things.”

            The Doctor laughed, and then spoke softly, feeling a little in awe and very stupid.  “Hello, baby…  It’s your dad.  Sorry I’ve been away for so long.  I would have like to get to know you sooner, but I guess we have a lifetime for that.  I…love you.”

            He looked up sheepishly at River.  “This is going to take some getting used to.”

            “You’ll be perfect at it.  Best dad in the universe.  Besides Rory, of course.”

            “Speaking of Rory,” a voice said from the door, “did someone need medical attention?”

            And the Last Centurion walked into the sick bay, holding the hand of the Girl Who Waited.

            River couldn’t breathe.  “Mum…Dad?”

            They beamed at her, and Amy’s nose crinkled up with a laugh about to come out.  “Missed us, didn’t you?”

            The Doctor helped River to her feet, who waddled over as best she could to hug her parents, whom she’d long thought lost forever.  “She’s fine, Rory, I made sure.”

            Rory, who was crying in the midst of his family reunion, nodded in the Doctor’s direction.  “Let me just make sure—oh, Melody, look at you!  I can’t believe it!  I missed you so much.  I can’t believe—”

            “—that this complete bozo knocked you up!” Amy finished, rubbing River’s stomach appreciatively.  “My little girl.  I’m goin’ to be a grandma.  I’ll be one of those hot, cool grandmas.”

            “I don’t know if there is such a thing,” Rory joked, earning a jab in the ribs from Amy.  “But-but-but—there will be when _you_ become one, dear!”

            River wiped the tears from her eyes and beckoned to the Doctor, pulling him in for a Pond family reunion.  “I have missed you so much.”

            “We were so worried, River.  The Doctor didn’t even know what to do, we’d find him crying all the time in one of the TARDIS closets—”

            “Enough, Amy! What they mean to say is,” the Doctor corrected, “that I spent a lot of time in the closets being manly and cool.  Not crying.”

            “What’s goin’ on???  Is River all right?” Rose called from the hall, dragging 10 behind her.

            “Blimey, Rose, you’re about to yank my arm off—oh, hello, River!” 10 said brightly.  “It’s wonderful to see you again!”

            River blinked.  “But—but that’s you, Doctor!  You brought back another you?”

            “Not exactly.  More of a clone or copy or—”

            “—biological metacrisis, hand guy, yeah…”  10 grinned cheekily at River.  “Didn’t he ever tell you that?”

            “No, he was too busy doing something stupid.”

            “Well, he’s a 12-year-old locked inside a Time Lord body, dear,” 10 laughed, running a hand through his hair, “so he doesn’t exactly have time to pay attention to the details.  Namely, how horrible that bowtie looks with those suspenders.”

            River raised her eyebrows.  “I haven’t met this regeneration yet, but I like him.  Is he as good as you are in bed?”

            Rose cleared her throat, shoving her way to the front (and kicking 10 for good measure).  “River, hi—I’ve heard so much about you.  I’m Rose.”

            River stepped forward to shake her hand.  “Rose Tyler!  It’s an honor to meet you, sweetie!”

            Rose seemed placated after that, taking her place by her husband, who was currently being checked out by Amy, who had more time to appreciate this previous incarnation.

            “Did you really look like tha’, Doctor?” Amy asked incredulously.  “I wish I’d met this one.  He’s hot.”

            “Okay, everyone, we are the same person!!! We are equally hot!”  
            “We’re not quite the same person—part human, over here.  I think it adds to my charms.  Weeeell, charm…weeeeeell, allergy problems.”

            “I AM HOT, ALL RIGHT?” 11 shouted.

            The team was quiet after his outburst, but they quickly dissolved into giggles.

            “10, I know this is a lot to ask,” 11 said, “but we’re going to need a power boost to get out of this universe.  See if you can get to the main deck of the ship and wire the motherboard to the TARDIS streams.  When we get out of here, we’re going to need a lot of energy.”

            10 and Rose left together to arrange it while River sighed happily, melting in the arms of her family.  For one infinite moment, everything seemed like it was going to be all right.

            And then a twisting, wrenching pain tore through her gut and made her cry out, even though she tried to bite her lip and hide it from the Doctor.


	14. Chapter 14

The Doctor’s eyes bulged out in disbelief.  _No, no, no.  Not right now._

River’s eyes met his, willing herself to be wrong, wanting to make everything okay—but then another contraction ripped through her torso that she wasn’t prepared for, and she let out a tortured scream.

            Never let him see the damage?  Well, she’d tried her best up to this point.  Pain like this couldn’t be ignored.

            She doubled over, clutching her belly, and the Doctor snapped out of it, rushing to her side to take her outstretched hand and place his arm around her.  “River—River, you’re—”

“No—no, please, I’ll be fine in a few minutes!” River argued, breathing as best she could through clenched teeth.  “I don’t understand, Doctor—is the baby all right, what’s happening?—OWHHHH!” She howled and clutched the Doctor’s arm, panting in pain with the ongoing contraction.

Amy pressed her cool palms to River’s face, speaking calmly.  “Okay, River, you’re going to need to breathe for me, honey.”

            “I.  Am.  Trying.”

            “And look how good you’re doing.  Squeeze the Doctor’s hand however much it hurts.  A nice little payback for the pain he’s about to put you through.”

            “Not helping, Amy!” the Doctor argued, but River’s sweat-drenched face curled in a crooked grin.

            “Oh, I think it’s helping a little bit.”

            Rory popped into Nurse Mode.  “All right, River, how far along are you?”

            “Only eight months.  Something’s wrong, I know it,” River said quickly as the contraction subsided.

            “It might not be,” Rory explained.  “You might be going into labor a bit early because of the stress you’ve been under today.  Have you been having contractions all day?”

            River bit her lip.  “Well, I sort of…might have prompted some contractions.”

            “What do you mean?”

            She let out an exasperated sigh.  “It was part of an escape plan, all right???  The cell doors would only open if there was a new development with the baby, and we needed to get out, so John and I snogged for a bit.  Sexual activity can induce labor, and when the contractions started coming, the doors opened.”

            The Doctor fumed.  “You _kissed_ John?”

            “YOU WEREN’T EXACTLY AROUND, SWEETIE.”

            Rory soothed River and put his hands around her face.  “Melody, darling, you need to calm down.  Doctor, stop making her upset.”

            “She kissed another man!”

            “To escape prison, yeah—how many times has she done that before?  She was doing it to save her baby, you git, so pipe down!”

            “Sorry.  You’re right.  It’s fine, River, I owed you one anyway.”

            Amy looked at the couple.  “Do you honestly keep a tally of how many people you have to kiss outside of your marriage?”

            The Doctor flushed.  “You’d be surprised.”

            “Shut up, both of you,” Rory commanded.  “Now, River, how far apart are your contractions?  If we’re at the two-minute mark, we know it’s delivery time.”

            “I don’t know!  I’ve been unconscious for who knows how long!”

            “Well, then, we’ll have to just count.   It’s been about a minute since your last one ended, yeah?” Rory began silently counting the seconds while the sick bay calmed down.  The Doctor still held River from behind, with a hand folded over hers on her stomach and the other smoothing her hair down.

            Amy noticed it first.  “Where are Sherlock and John?”

            “Didn’t they come in behind us?”

            The Doctor looked around, pressed a kiss to River’s forehead, and left the sick bay to check the console room.  It was empty.  “This is very, very bad,” he whispered to himself.

            “Doctor?  Are they there?”

            “No, no, no they are not.”  He sighed and put a hand to his forehead.  “They’re still stuck with Moriarty.  I need to go.”

            “STOP!” roared River, barreling out of the room and down to the console.  She forced her way to face the Doctor, inches away from his face, and planted herself there.  “Just once, my love, please, just once—don’t do the heroic, stupid thing.  Please, can I be selfish just this once?  Don’t leave me.”

            He sighed.  “River, don’t do this to me.”

“YOU don’t do this to ME.  I’m about to have this baby, our baby, and you’re going to leave me here to save everyone else because you’re clever and mad and wonderful and you save the day, but Doctor, _please_ —I’m frightened, I’m scared, and I cannot do this without you, my love.  Don’t leave me when I need you most.  We can go back in time, we can save them when this is over, but please, don’t leave me alone.”

            “River, River,” he sighed, placing his hands around her face and staring straight into her, “this TARDIS has slammed through enough temporal rifts.  Sherlock and John are in trouble, and if I stay, they’re going to die.  And this universe has taken so much damage already—it will make their deaths a fixed point.  The Sherlock and John we know in the future might cease to exist.  Please, wife, listen to me—I have to go.”

            She started to cry, not wanting to but not able to stop.  “Doctor, I’m too scared.  Please, we can work something out.  Give me five minutes.  I can’t deliver her without you here.  What if you never come back?”

            “I’m coming back.  Try and stop me from coming back,” he said, pushing back his own tears, and he kissed her fervently, letting his mouth move against hers for a few precious moments before breaking away.  “Do a good job for me, honey—I know you’ll be brilliant.  You’ve done such a wonderful job taking care of her.  I’m sorry.”

            “NO!  No, Doctor, _no_ —”

            “Rory, if 10 and Rose come back before I do, there’s not…enough time.  So don’t wait.  Have 10 take everyone home.”

            “Doctor, listen to me, please!”  But River’s arms couldn’t hold him tightly enough, and the mad man jumped out of his box to save his friends.  She collapsed against the console in tears as another contraction seized her.

            Rory picked her up and took her back to the cot.  “That’s two minutes, River.  Time to go.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

            The Doctor felt that the hall was too quiet to be safe, but he strode down and entered River’s old cell, where Sherlock, John, and Moriarty were still at a standstill.  Moriarty and Sherlock seemed to be in some sort of intellectually face-off.

            “How’s this going to end, Sherlock?” Moriarty purred, ignoring the Doctor’s entrance.  “If you leave me alive, everything will remain the same.  We’ll still be looking for a way to destroy each other.”

            “Which is why you’re going to die today.  Now,” Sherlock said.  He tossed the bag of ashes from hand to hand.

            “Praytell, dear, how are you going to kill me?  I’m not going to let those ashes anywhere near me, and let’s face it, you don’t exactly have the best aim.”  Moriarty grinned and segued into his usual monologue.  “Face it, Sherly.  For the rest of your life, I will be looming over your shoulder.  You’re going to hear me every time you cross a street.  You’ll see my face in each cup of tea and you’ll jump every time a door opens, because you simply won’t know when I’m coming.  I don’t think you have the guts to do it, honestly.  Really, go ahead—kill me.  Try it right now.  I _dare_ you.”

            Sherlock didn’t move from his spot.  The bag stayed in his hand.

            The Doctor’s eyes darted around the room and saw John, who had moved a few feet from Sherlock while the two geniuses spurred it out.  There was a plan in play, he was sure of it.

            “As you might have noticed, Sherlock, I don’t bother with these ‘relationship’ things.  They’re tedious and they make me weak.  And I thought you were smart enough to do the same.”  Moriarty shook his head sadly.  “You have too many people in your life.  Too much clutter, Sherly.  And you wouldn’t pull the trigger in front of your precious boyfriend now, not now that you’ve proven to him that you’re a good man.”

            “I burned your dead body.  Does that classify as something a good man does?”

            “You did it to save your friends, and it’s not as if you actually killed me, did you, dear?”  Moriarty chuckled.  “No, I do rather think you’re hopeless.  But you’re good, I’ll give you that.  I’ve noticed John inching closer this entire time.  What do you take me for, a classic villain who monologues on and on until he’s distracted enough to be defeated?  No, no, no, no, no.”  Moriarty cocked and aimed his revolver at John.  “Bad luck, Johnny.  Never fall in love with a genius, dear.  It always ends horribly.  Just ask River Song, or Moran, for that matter.”

            Something about that statement put the Doctor off.  “Moriarty, what did you do to River?”

            Moriarty took his eyes off John and spared the Doctor a patronizing glance.  “I’d go check on that baby in a bit, Doc.  So sorry you couldn’t have your little Time family.  It would have made for great telly.”

            John seized his chance and threw a handful of dust at Moriarty when he looked away, which immediately stuck to his skin and seared onto Moriarty’s flesh.  He let out an unearthly scream as the ashes John had hidden in his hand began to burn him, lighting up his skin with a surreal flame.  Then all he could do was laugh and speak to the men through the flames.  “This is the end, eh?  Well, bollocks to you all.  You’re all in for a nasty surprise!”

            “Moriarty!  What is wrong with the baby?  What did you _do_???”

            He raised his fiery hand and shot off a quick round meant for John’s head, but his hand disappeared and the rest of his body soon followed into a paradoxical inferno.  The universe snapped and fizzled at the edges, groaning at the strain of the wrongness of Jim’s dead body on his living one, until all of James Moriarty had been erased from the world of the living.  The only thing that remained was a scorchmark on the floor where he’d died and a smoking gun.

            The Doctor let out a sigh of relief before bouncing back into action.  “Right, John…that was brilliant.  You two are brilliant.  But we have to go and figure out what he meant.  I’ve a horrible feeling that he’s done something irreversible.”

            Sherlock nodded gravely and made to follow him out of the room until he heard a small grunt from the corner of the room.  “John?”

            John held a hand to his side.  “You guys might want to leave without me.  I’ll catch up behind you in a minute.”

            Sherlock noticed the pressure he was applying to his abdomen and walked to him, pulling John’s white fingers from his side.  Thick, red blood was dripping from a bulletwound.  “John, _no_.”  John collapsed into his arms, shaking with the exertion of keeping straight, and Sherlock got him to the ground.  “I thought he’d missed!”

            “I’m fine.  It’s a stomach wound, easily fixed.  Doctor,” John said through clenched teeth, “you need to go to River.  Save your baby, before it’s too late.”

            The spaceship suddenly reverberated around them, vibrating back and forth with a tinny buzz.  “10 must have hooked the motherboard up to the TARDIS.  We can all go home.  Time will repair itself.”

            “Go.”  John groaned at the pain of his wound.  “Please, go.  I’ll be fine.”

            Sherlock folded his arms around John’s frame.  “Keep putting pressure on it, John.  I’ll carry you there.”

            “I’m not exactly going to stop, am I?” John gasped, and then he screamed as Sherlock lifted him and blood gushed from the wound.  “STOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOP!”

            “We have to get you medical treatment or you’ll bleed out!” Sherlock insisted in a panic, pressing his scarf down hard on the bullethole.  “Grit your teeth and give me thirty seconds!”  
            “Just _go_ , Sherlock!” John begged.  “Please, get out of here before the hole closes and you can never go home.”

            “I’m not leaving my blogger here to die.”

            “I’ll be fine.  It’s not…I’m not going to die.”

            The Doctor rushed over to help, using his sonic to scan his internal organs.  “Actually, you are.”

            “DOCTOR!”

            “Sherlock, we need to move him now.”

            “You’re not moving me anywhere—there’s no time!  You have to get back to the TARDIS.”

            “Doctor, can’t you use regeneration energy on him to fix it?”

            “It doesn’t work like that!”

            “Then HOW does it work???”

            John moaned in pain.  “Shut up, both of you.  You’re wasting time.  You need to get on the TARDIS, now.”

            Sherlock still wanted an explanation.  “You healed John and my bones and organs from the fall.  Why can’t you do it now?”

            “You weren’t dying at that point—10 already had you on the TARDIS life support systems, so I was just mending broken appendages!  John is dying, he’s losing too much blood,” the Doctor said urgently as more blood poured from John’s side and soaked the scarf as if to emphasize his point.  “I can’t heal someone who’s this close to death.  I wish I could.”

            Sherlock’s mind kicked in to overdrive.  “We have to move him.  If we take the cot over there—”

            “Sherlock…” John spluttered in argument, more blood spurting from his stomach.

            “Quiet, John!  The hall is about two hundred meters long, and if we can move the cot out of the room and fit it through the TARDIS doors, we could lose minimal amounts of blood.”

            “Sherlock, please…”

            “ _I’m not letting you die, do you hear me_?” Sherlock took his blood-specked hands and cradled John’s face, which was contorted with the effort of trying to keep his pain hidden.  “Do you understand?  I’m not letting you leave me, so stop being an arse about it and just let us take care of you.”

            “Sherlock,” the Doctor said softly, shaking his head.

            Sherlock stared at the Doctor, waiting for him to explain how they can make this work.  When it was clear that he wouldn’t offer a solution, he got angry.  “You said we would be together, in the future.  You said we would both survive.  Tell me how that future is supposed to happen if he dies.”

            “The universe has been blown apart by all the paradoxes that were created today.  If he dies…well, the universe will make it a fixed point in time.  There isn’t anything I can do.”

            “No!  I refuse to believe that!  You’re the Doctor—work something out.  Save him like you’ve saved everyone else.  Find a way.”

            “I can’t.”

            “Then you’re _useless_ ,” Sherlock hissed.

            John put a bloody hand on Sherlock’s.  “Stop.  It’s not his fault, eh?  We…we saved everyone.  We killed Moriarty, together.  That’s got to count for something.”

            Sherlock’s eyes softened.  “It does.  It means everything.  All right,” he said, putting a hand to his temple.  “Okay.  Yes.  I’ve got it.  Doctor, you need to go back to the TARDIS before they leave without you.  When you’re in the TARDIS, save River and the baby, and then come back before the hole closes.  Take it back to when John first threw the ashes, and then make sure he’s out of the way so the bullet doesn’t hit him.”

            The Doctor blanched.  “Change all of time and space?  That’s what you’re asking me to do?”

            “That’s what I’m ordering you to do.”

            He grinned.  “Brilliant.  I can do that.  Frankly, everything’s already falling apart so much that one more paradox will barely matter in the scheme of things.  Try and keep him alive in this universe, though—it will make things easier if I go back and his future self is still alive.”

            “I will.  If he doesn’t move, he has about ten more minutes.”

            “Boys, I’m right here, you know?” John moaned, annoyed.  “Won’t that break fixed time or make another hole, or something?”

            “Not if we time this right.  It’s impossible, of course, but it just might work.  But you know, if it doesn’t, he’ll be dead, Sherlock.”

            “It’s going to work,” Sherlock insisted.

            “And if it does work, then this timeline is going to cease to exist.  The John in front of you will disappear, and so will you.  Whatever’s left in this timeline will never have happened, so only the Sherlock and John from the past will be alive.  Do you understand what that means?”

            John nodded gravely for the both of them.  “Do it, Doctor.  If we can give them the chance to be alive, then it won’t matter what happens to me.”

            Sherlock agreed with him.  “Or me.  Run.  I’m staying with John, Doctor.  I’m not going to leave him.”

            The Doctor began to run out of the room until Sherlock called for him again.  “Wait!”

            “What is it?”

            “You said that John and I in this timeline are going to cease to exist.  We’ll blink and then we’ll be gone, and only the Sherlock and John from that moment in time will exist.  We won’t remember that this happened, because they won’t be us, anymore.  So we’re going to die.”

            “Er…in a manner of speaking.”

            “Fine.”  Sherlock clasped John’s hand.  “Would you consider yourself the captain of the TARDIS?”

            “That’s one way of putting it.”

            “Good.  Then marry us.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, lovely readers. I'm sorry I've been rubbish at the whole note thing, but I just wanted to thank you for being so kind about this story. I was rather worried it wouldn't get a good reaction. I hope you enjoy the final few chapters, and rest assured, a sequel has been written and is awaiting its premiere. This one's for you, loveys!

The Doctor blinked in surprise.  “I’m sorry?”

            “You heard me.  John and I are about to die.  We only have minutes left, and you’re in a bit of a hurry, so could you hurry up with it?  There has to be a quick version of a marriage ceremony you can perform?”

            John’s head was reeling.  “What’s happening, exactly?  You want to marry me?  Sherlock, we haven’t even been together a full hour and you’re proposing?”

            “I’m going to spend the rest of my life with you, John Watson, even if that’s only two minutes.  I already explained that I love you—what more is there?  Do you not want to marry me?”

            John gulped.  “Of course I do.  It’s just…bloody hell, I’m dying.  Why the hell not?” With effort, he turned his head to the Doctor.  “Please, Doctor?”

            The Doctor swallowed and pulled off his bowtie.  “I can do that.  We’ll go with the battlefield version, then.  A handfasting ceremony will do it.”  He wrapped the bow tie around each of the men’s hands.  “All right.  Ready?”

            “Get on with it,” Sherlock said, and John pushed himself up to a sitting position with Sherlock’s help.  He slid an arm around his waist for support and nodded to begin.

            “All right, John Watson, do you take Sherlock Holmes to be your husband, in all of time and through every hour of darkness, for the rest of your life?”

            “I do.”

            “Sherlock Holmes, do you take John Watson to be your husband, in all—”

            “Yes, yes, I do!  Is that it, then?” Sherlock whined, keeping the hand that wasn’t holding the tie pressed to the still-gushing wound.

            “That’s it.  I’m going now!” the Doctor announced, running out of the room and down the corridor.  He shouted behind him, “Oh!  And you can kiss now!”

            Sherlock smiled to himself and met John’s eyes.  He looked equally disbelieving, happy, and very much in pain.

            John coughed.  “Get over here, you git.”  And Sherlock kissed John with as much passion and love as he could muster from his battle-worn body.  John, for his part, matched him kiss for kiss despite the life that was spilling out of him.  He gave up on trying to keep upright and wrapped his arms around Sherlock’s shoulders, desperately trying to keep him close.

            “We’ve got to keep pressure on it,” Sherlock tried to warn his husband against his lips.

            “Shut up.  I’m not spending the last minute I have with my husband whining over some fleshwound.  I’m going to die kissing you, so sod off.”

            Sherlock decided, in a bittersweet agreement, that that was an amenable option to the both of them.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

            10 pulled buttons and worked under the main console, putting wires together for maximum power while he ignored River’s agonizing screams in the sick bay.  Rose had abandoned him to work on the TARDIS so she could help with the delivery.  River had gone into full-on labor with sickening timing, as soon as 11 had left to rescue Sherlock and John, and over the sounds of the painful delivery he could hear her begging for her idiotic husband to come back so she could shoot him in the foot.

            “You’re doing great, sweetheart!” Amy said soothingly from the foot of the cot, where she’d decided to be during the delivery.  There was no way she’d let Rory anywhere near River beneath the waist, even if he was a nurse and she was his daughter.  “This is going to be easy.  Just pretend you’re squeezing out toothpaste or something!”

            River groaned and swatted at the air.

            Rose rolled her eyes.  “You gave birth to River—don’t you know how to deliver a baby?”

            “I was sort of dealt with differently.  Didn’t the Doctor tell you about Kovarian?” Amy said with a scowl.  Rory just let River hold onto his hand for dear life as she pushed.

            Rose took her place by River’s side.  “You’re going to be okay, River.  Breathe with me, all right?”  She did the breathing exercises she’d learned back on Pete’s World when she was giving birth to Bo.  
            “You…look…ridiculous,” River panted, but she breathed with Rose.

            “Trust me, they help.  I used them with my son, and it took the focus off the pain,” Rose said soothingly, rubbing small circles on River’s wrist as River screamed again and pushed.

            “Oh, why isn’t he here?!?” River cried.  “He promised he’d be back.  I can’t do this!  Not without him!”

            “River, focus!” Rose said.  “The Doctor isn’t here, but he loves you very much.  He’s just busy being brave and he’s going to come back to you and be here for you.  But you’ve got to be brave for him in the meantime, okay?”

            “Yes, all right,” River agreed crossly.  “Please just get her out of me before I shoot something!”  She screamed again and squeezed Rose and Rory’s hands, and a gurgling cry was heard.

            Amy’s eyes lit up.  “The head’s out, sweetheart!  You’re nearly done!”

            Rose smiled.  “Hear that, River?  That’s your little girl.  She’s saying hello!”

            River was barely lucid, but she managed the most blindingly happy of smiles.  “Hello, sweetie…” she croaked.  “Come on, I’m nearly done!”

            “Push!”  
            “ _I’m pushing!_ ” River exclaimed in a raspy voice, and with a few more grunts of pain and a long, tortured scream, the baby came out in a rush of blood and water and River relaxed her tense body against the cot.

            The baby’s wail sounded loud and reassuring as Amy cut the umbilical cord and cleaned the baby off.  The TARDIS automatically check the vitals and gave the little girl a clean bill of health.

            Exhausted but happy, River held her hands out.  “Please, Mother…let me hold her.”

            Amy obliged her and set the little bundle in River’s arms, and River cradled her softly and automatically with the sense of a mother.  The baby girl continued to cry lustily as tears leaked from River’s eyes.  “Hi, sweetie,” she said softly.  “Don’t cry, darling.  I’m so happy you’re safe.”

            Rory looked aghast.  “Wow.  It just hit me.  I’m 32 years old and I’m a granddad.”

            “That makes Brian a great-granddad,” Amy joked.  “We’re one messed up family.”

            “But we’re a family,” River affirmed.  She looked to Rose.  “You, too.  Thank you so much for your help.  I’m sure…it couldn’t have been easy.”

            “Yeah, a bit weird.  Helping deliver the Doctor’s baby.” Rose shrugged it off.  “I have my own Doctor and my own baby.  I’m just happy he’s happy, and you’re happy.”

            “You know, you are as gracious and kind as the Doctor’s always told me.  Thank you,” River said fervently.  The baby’s wails softened to a confused gurgle while she curled up to her mother’s chest and nestled into the warmth.

            A racket came from the control room and 11 finally, _finally_ , bounded in.  “River!  I came as soon as I could!  We need to turn this TARDIS around, and quickly!  River—”  He stopped in the doorway and saw everyone beaming at him, with his proud but exhausted wife giving him a look that promised that she had never been happier to see him and she would enjoy punching him in the face for this later.  “Wow.  You—you’re all right.”

            “No thanks to you, _Dad_ ,” she groaned with a good-natured smile.  He noticed the baby and his eyes grew huge.

            “Wow.  Is she safe?”

            “Completely healthy.”

            He broke into the hugest grin in the universe, took two longs strides across the room, and pressed a fiercely loving kiss to River’s forehead.  He gave the baby a quick, adoring look.  “She’s perfect.  And if you’ll believe it, I came up with a perfect name for her.”

            He whispered it into River’s ear, and she smiled.  “I can’t say I don’t like it, but we’ll have to talk about it.”

            “I need ten minutes, and we can talk all you like.  I love you both.”

            He ran out back to the console, where 10 was anxiously waiting.  “I think we have enough power to get us to your world, but I’m not sure if we have time to stop by a rift and get more energy,” he explained, sliding glasses onto the bridge of his nose to seem more authoritative.

            11 noticed.  “And you say _I’m_ ridiculous for wearing bowties, honestly.  You don’t even need glasses!”  Before he traveled to save John, he did something as secretly as he could as a back-up plan, knowing that what he was about to do could possibly end badly for him.  When he saved John, his past self wouldn’t know something might be wrong his their baby, so he had to make sure that what he thought was correct.

            After a few minutes of sad humming, the TARDIS screen told him what he needed to know.  He choked back a sob and quickly typed around to fix it, saving everything he could into the TARDIS mainframe.

            With a sigh when it was done, he piloted the TARDIS back in time.

            10 saw him putting in coordinates for the past, several minutes ago.  “What the hell are you doing?  We have to get out of here!  Where are Sherlock and John?”

            “Exactly!”  The TARDIS lit up with the intense strain of the oncoming paradox, but 11 stroked the control panel lovingly in apology.  “I’m sorry, old girl.  Be right back.”  Then he jumped off the deck and ran back outside.

            “Oi!  What are you doing?  DOCTOR!” 10 shouted as he left, but he was ignored.

            He ran like a madman down the hall, hoping he’d gotten the timing right.  He peeked his head around the doorway and saw himself standing nearby, watching Sherlock, Moriarty, and John.  John was inching closer, about to throw the ashes, and the Doctor seized his chance.

            “Look at me, I’m a distraction!” he yelled, putting Moriarty off his guard for the one crucial second John needed t fling the ashes in his face.  Moriarty screamed as he began to burn at the contact.

            This time, the Doctor didn’t wait.  He walked right up to the smoldering Moriarty and took the gun right out of his shocked hand before he could even think of using it, and he simply stared as Moriarty argued in vain against his death and eventually disappeared with nothing left but a burnmark.

            When he had completely disappeared, everything was silent.  And then the entire ship began to blaze, not with fire, but with bright yellow light.  Things fizzed and popped around them, bleeding out of existence.

            Sherlock shook his head.  “I don’t understand.  What’s happening?  Why are there two Doctors?”

            The Doctor from the future explained sadly, “You sent me, from my time.  In my timeline, Moriarty killed John, and I came back on your orders to save him.  Now, of course, things are going in flux because some parts of time make sense again, but John being alive doesn’t.”

            John blinked.  “I died?  But you saved me, so I’m alive… What do we do now?”

            “You two need to follow the Doctor from your time,” the Doctor said, nodding to his younger counterpart, “and get out of here.  There are two TARDISes outside, but you’ll want to get into my TARDIS on the left.”

            “What’s going to happen to you and the TARDIS you came in?  And the people inside it?” Sherlock asked.

            “That’s the tricky part, I’m afraid,” the Doctor said sadly.  “We can’t have both TARDISes go through the hole, since only one came in, and my TARDIS is the only one with enough power to get through, so you three need to be on it.  Your TARDIS will disappear with the ship.”

            The past-Doctor looked outraged.  “You’re condemning yourself to death—and not just you, but River and our baby!”

            “They’ll still be alive on my TARDIS—the River and baby in your TARDIS will just…” He didn’t want to say ‘cease to exist’, because they wouldn’t know what happened and they’d still be alive on the other side, from his own time.  It would be a simple disappearance.  No one would see it coming but the Doctor.  He _had_ to believe that—River and everyone else would still be alive on the other side.  There just couldn’t be two of them.

            “So you’re just going to let yourself disappear?”

            “I’m not _really_ disappearing.  I’m just erasing this timeline.  I’ll still be alive because you’re alive,” he said, gesturing to the past-Doctor.  “Doctor, the River in my TARDIS…the baby…they’re alive, they’re fine.  She delivered her okay.”

            The past-Doctor sighed in relief.  “You’re giving your existence to save us.”

            “I haven’t done anything remotely useful this entire mission.  But I can do this.  I promised John, that I’d make sure Sherlock came out of this alive, and I promised Sherlock that I’d save John’s life, and this is the only way to save my family.  Now go.”

            John clapped the Doctor in an iron embrace.  “Thank you for saving me, and for him.  You’re every bit as wonderful as everyone says, and I’m so sorry I didn’t treat you that way when we first met.”

            The Doctor smiled faintly.  “It’s all right.  Be nice to the young me, when you meet him.”

            Sherlock wordlessly shook his hand and left with the past-Doctor looking lost and broken behind him.  “Thank you.”

            “You know it’s nothing, really.  But there is something you should know.”  The Doctor dropped his voice to a hush.  “With the ship disappearing and all the paradoxes, the universe is trying to right itself.  Things that happened in my timeline are going to vanish, as is everything that had to do with Moriarty’s plan.  That includes…certain induced deliveries that occurred during this adventure.”

            The past-Doctor’s eyes widened.  “The baby.  _No_.”

            “I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next few hours, but have 10 take you to get his son, and then drop him off with Rose.  Drop off the Ponds, drop off Sherlock and John, and don’t let River and the baby leave your sight for a second.  If something happens…I’ve made a few arrangements, and I’m sure you can figure them out.  The TARDIS should do a good job of explaining.  Oh, and _don’t tell River_.  I don’t want her to mourn over me, not when she’ll have you.  Just pretend you’re the me that left her with the baby.  Which means you should know this.”  He told his past self the name that had come to him in bits and pieces in the moments after marrying Sherlock and John.

            The past-Doctor nodded.  “You know, I think I was thinking of it this entire time.  Did you tell River?”

            “Yes.”

            The past-Doctor saw the ship shudder with the aftershocks of the explosion in time and he ran without another word, leaving the Doctor alone for his final minutes.  The TARDIS wheezed away and presumably left this sorry world for his own, where another version of himself would get to be a father to a baby he’d barely even met.

            Well, that version would get to be the father he was frightened of being, a bit.  He couldn’t deny that he’d been scared witless at the prospect of fatherhood, when he hadn’t been one for almost a millennium.  But now, he could do the one thing he could for his child and wife, and be a good father in his final moments.  He could ensure their safety with his own death, of sorts.

            He could feel the vibrations thrum throughout the spaceship, and he knew that it was time.

            Well.  This was it, then.

            He slumped against a wall.

            It wouldn’t be long now.  He was sure it would be painless.  He’d died so many more painful ways, after all.

            _It wasn’t so bad, was it?  The whole living thing.  I got a lot done._

The walls began to hum and grow brighter, signaling the destruction was only seconds away.  The Doctor closed his eyes and tried to picture it all.

            Every beautiful planet he’d ever visited.  Everyone amazing person he’d ever met.

            Every companion who’d made his life so much more joyful and painful than when he was alone.

            Rose on New Earth, smiling with her blonde hair flapping in the breeze.

            Martha, bravely defending him in the face of the Master.

            Brilliant Donna Noble, taking all her suitcases out of her car and putting them in the TARDIS like it was her house.

            Amy Pond, eyes lighting up with delight when she got to see the stars up close.

            Rory, laughing his head off at the Doctor’s impatience during the Slow Invasion.

           

            River Song.

 

            River, raising an eyebrow at him when he even suggested to put away her gun.

            River, yelling at him about the blue stabilizers.

            River, packing enough cleavage to fell an ox—and writing a novel about it.

            River, looking at him with so much love before their wedding that he couldn’t say no to her.

 

            Scheming with River to battle off the Weeping Angels.

            Traveling with River to new and unexplored worlds.

            Holding River’s hand.

            Kissing River Song, and never wanting to let her go, even though he knew he lost everything at some point in his life and he couldn’t possibly be allowed to keep her, but kissing her nonetheless.

           

            He held on to that image, the senses that surrounded him when he kissed River Song, when the light engulfed him and the ship ceased to exist.


	16. Chapter 16

10 looked intensely relieved when they came back, and the people who had gathered in the console room gave a cheer when 11 toppled through the door in a rush with battle-beaten Sherlock and John.  Everyone gave a whoop and Rose hugged Sherlock and John tightly, well Rory clapped them all on their backs and Amy gushed over how happy she was that they were alive.  11 looked weary and very upset, for some reason, but they allowed him to leave them all without a word to slink back into the corridor of the TARDIS and into his bedroom.  River would have wanted them to move her out of the sick bay after the birth, since she often said the Doctor’s bedroom was the most comfortable room in the entire time machine.

River Song, for her part, sensed when he stepped through the TARDIS doors as his friends cheered for him in the console room.  They’d left her and the baby alone to sleep, but they should have known that the second he entered, she’d know.

            She straightened herself up, ignoring the aches and pains of afterbirth, and resettled her arms around the baby, who was peacefully sucking her thumb and nuzzled into her mother’s chest.  The angel was completely healthy, and she seemed calm despite the bloodshed and horror that had preceded her birth.

            Safe at last.  It seemed too early to say it, but River knew that it was.  Just as she knew that the good man who had gone to war again for her wouldn’t waste time getting to her.

            And she was right, because there he was in the door, sheepishly shifting from foot to foot.

            And she smiled.  “Hello, sweetie.”

            He looked up at her, his face a rapture of emotions: relief at her safety, curiosity to see the baby, anxiety in anticipation of her anger, fear of the impending announcement of fatherhood.  He cleared his throat.  “Sorry I’m late, honey.  Work ran late again.  Anything interesting happen in my absence?”

            She shrugged, letting a sleeve of the robe Rose had given her fall off her shoulder.  “The usual.”

            He stepped tentatively inside.  “Can I see her?”

            “Of course you can.”  She carefully lifted her daughter to him, kissing her on the forehead before passing her off.  “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty—Daddy’s home.”

            The Doctor looked terrified as River lifted the baby, and he was extremely gentle with the fragile bundle.  “Oh.  Oh, wow.  This is a baby.”

            “Yes, it is.  It’s your baby.”

            “It’s—wow, it’s a baby, all right.  My baby.  Our…baby.”

            “Doctor, you haven’t even looked at her yet.”

            “What?”  He looked at River before realizing that he’d spend the first few seconds holding his daughter by staring, numb with shock, at the ceiling.  “Oh.  Yes, um…looking at my child.  I should do that.”

            “Yeah.”

            “Yeah.”  He gulped and then peered down, not exactly sure what he’d see.  A baby, he assumed.

            River waited for the moment to happen—and it came a few seconds later, when the Doctor got the courage to look at his daughter, and saw how beautiful she was.

            His eyes literally lit up and shone brightly with revelation.  “ _Wow_.  Oh, River, she’s— _wow_.”

            “She’s beautiful.”

            “ _Beautiful_??? She’s—” The Doctor held her closer, supporting her head as it lolled in her sleep.  “She’s the most beautiful, incredible thing I’ve ever—oh, River, she’s amazing.  She looks just like you.  Look at—look at her hair!”  He leaned down and kneeled next to the bed, pointing out the wispy, softly curling hair on the baby’s head.

            “Dark, like yours,” she grinned.  “Poor girl didn’t get my color.  I think she looks more like you.  So, how did you come up with her name?”

            “It sort of came to me,” he said a bit awkwardly.  “You know the tradition on Gallifrey—we have rather long-winded names.  You remember meeting Romanadvoratrelundar?”

            “That’s a bit of a mouthful, but at least yours is a bit shorter.”  She leaned back and watched her husband hold their daughter with a hard-won peace settling on her.  “Are we not supposed to tell anyone, or say it…?”

            “We’ll put it on her cradle and tell her what it is, but it’s her secret to keep.  She can pick a Time Lady name when she’s ready, and until then, it does have a sort of built-in nickname.”

            “That sounds wonderful to me, sweetie,” River agreed in a tired voice.

            “Will you say it for me?  I want to hear you say our daughter’s name.”

            “All right.”  River leaned over, sliding a fatigued arm over the Doctor’s shoulder and placing her other arm around the bundle surrounding their baby.  She bent over and kissed the crown of her head.  “Hello, Lyradesphielumandar.  Welcome to the universe.”

            “Lyradesphielumandar.”  He smiled and also kissed his daughter’s head.  “It’s a bit of a mouthful, but she won’t have to say it much.”

            “You were thinking Lyra as a nickname, weren’t you?”

            “Well, her mother’s name is Melody—you know, Lyra as in lyre, lyrics, lyrical…It’s also a beautiful constellation that we visited—”

            “—on our first honeymoon!”  River grinned at remembering.  “Lyra Song.  I guess she gets my last name.”

            The Doctor continued to stare at the little girl, eyes brimming with tears.  River noticed and kissed his temple, affectionately ruffling his hair as he tried to wipe his eyes on his sleeve.  “She really is beautiful.  I never thought I’d be this happy…to be a dad again.  I was really scared.”

            “You’re doing fine so far.”

            “I have the world’s best mum to help me out.”  He took a deep breath.  “So what do we do now?”

            “Hmm.  I don’t know,” she said, leaning back on the pillows. “How do two Time Lord psychopaths raise a Time Lord baby?”

            “With great difficulty.  Move over, honey,” he said, deftly maneuvering his way onto the bed and keeping a firm hold under the baby while putting an arm over River’s shoulder.  Without tearing his eyes away from the baby, he pressed a quick kiss to River’s temple.  “I don’t want to stop looking at her.  I’m afraid I’m going to blink and she’s going to slip through my fingers and I’m going to lose her.”

            “You’re not going to lose anyone,” River said matter-of-factly, snuggling close to her husband and finally relaxing.  “I’m so glad I didn’t lose you.”

            “Sorry about that.  It was a gamble, but I knew you’d understand.”

            “I did.  But you’re never to do that to me again.  Not only did I have to deliver the baby, I had to deliver her a month early after being imprisoned by a psychopath who wanted to break and control you, with the help of your old flame, knowing you and my parents and all the people we love could die at any moment.”

            “Again, I’m sorry.  Any way I can make it up to you?”

            “Yes.”

            And then the Doctor had to take his eyes off his perfect daughter, because River slapped him across the face.

            He took a moment to take in the slap, breathing in deeply before responding to it.  “I deserved that.”  
            “Yep.  It’s not like that hurt worse than what I went through.”

            “Yeah, I should probably ask—how’d that go?”

            River nestled her face in the crook between his neck and shoulder.  “We were fine.  She was a huge help to me.  But what really helped was imagining you there, talking me through it.”

            “Really?”

            “For the most part.  It really hurt, sweetie.  And this is coming from someone who’s been shot by a Nazi.”

            He leaned his head on top of hers, closing his eyes from a moment.  “I’m so sorry.  I wish I could have been there.”

            “Maybe you will be, next time.  If there’s a next time.  Is it too early to ask about a next time?”

            “That is a loaded question.”

            “Sorry to interrupt,” 10 said, clearing his throat and knocking on the door, “but we’re back in your world now.  We wanted to say thanks to Martha and Mickey and grab Bo, so we’ll only be here a few minutes.  But then we’re heading back to Pete’s World and leaving, and we figured we’d say goodbye, now.  Doctor, you’ll want to be at the helm when we go.”

            11 hugged 10.  “Thank you for helping me rescue my family.  I couldn’t have done it without you, Handy—er, Doctor.  You’ve done a wonderful job taking care of Rose, and I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done.”

            10 grinned.  “You take care of yourself, okay, Doctor?”

            Rose laughed and sidled into the room with a wave.  “We’ll be leaving, then.  It was wonderful to meet you, River,” she said, placing a kiss on top of the baby’s head.  “It’s cool to know I have a little Time Lady niece running around the universe.”

            “She’ll be told all about her Aunt Rose,” River assured her.  “Thank you for everything.”

            “It really was my pleasure.  I thought it would be weird to meet the woman who married the Doctor, but y’know, it’s really not.  He’s a different man with you around—not to say I wouldn’t have loved him in this incarnation, only that…I’m glad he has you.  And I’m glad I have my Doctor.”  She threw her arms around 11 and breathed in the scent of time and war one last time.  “This is really the last time, Doctor.  I’ll miss you, but it was so, _so_ wonderful to travel with you again.”

            11 smiled into her blonde hair.  “I wish you all the best with your family, Rose Tyler.”


	17. Chapter 17

“You’re sure you don’t want to stay with us?” the Doctor asked from his bed, where River and Lyra were dozing on his shoulder.  The Ponds sat on the edge, holding hands and looking very sorry.

            “We have a life back home,” Rory admitted sheepishly.  “As much as we’d love to keep staying with you, we’re just…not your companions anymore.”

            “But we will _always_ be family,” reassured Amy.  “Always.  And River will be by the visit with little Lyra.  Besides, it took a genius like Sherlock to figure out that all we had to do was move out of New York to see you again.”

            “If we travel around with you, though, we’re afraid the remnants of the Weeping Angels will start looking for me again.”  Rory played with a tuft of hair on his granddaughter’s head.  “If we go back to our time, we can prevent that from happening.  But we’ll give River the address when she comes to us with the manuscript for the Melody Malone novel, when we move out of New York.  You’ll be able to drop in for a visit, all of you.”

            “Also, before Sherlock found us, we were…kind of in the middle of our own family stuff,” Amy said with a blush.  “We were in the middle of the adoption process, and as much as we’d love to keep traveling, we can’t abandon our son out there.  He needs his parents.”

            The Doctor looked incredulous.  “Brilliant Amy Pond—you’re adopting a baby?”

            “Amy _Williams_ ,” she corrected him.  “His name’s Anthony.  He’s actually a toddler, really.  Only two, but he lost his parents in the first World War, and when we met him at the orphanage…oh, we fell in love.  He’s our little boy.”

            The Doctor nodded.  “Congratulations, you two.  Well, it looks like you’re adding another Boy Who Waited to your family.  I’ll take you to Albany, in your time—now that the universe is patching itself back up after we left Pete’s World, the TARDIS still can’t go to New York anymore.  Could you sit here with the girls while I go check on Sherlock and John?  Then I’ll take you two home.”

            Amy took his place and shifted the sleeping Lyra into her arms, cooing at her granddaughter while the Doctor stretched his aching limbs and trotted out of his room.  “Sherlock!  John!”

            He heard a bit of a scuffle, and then one of the spare bedroom doors opened quickly and John’s head peeked out.  “Er, sorry—erm, what’s going on?  Everything all right?”

            The Doctor narrowed his eyes suspiciously.  “It’s all fine.  What’s going on in there?”

            “Oh, nothing.  Just, you know, two blokes spending some quiet time together after a rough day.”  John shrugged, which unfortunately for him revealed the fact that he wasn’t wearing a shirt, at least. “You know.  Stuff.”

            Sherlock burst through the door wearing nothing but a sheet, his curls sticking out at every angle and his cheeks flushed with excitement.  “That was _excellent_!!!! John, we MUST do that again!”

            “Sherlock, you git!  Back inside, NOW!” John said as he flushed a deep red.

            The Doctor face-palmed.  “You two didn’t.  I can’t believe it.  Not on _my_ ship!”

            “No, no, no!” John backpedaled.  “We were just, erm…”

            “I believe the correct term, John, is ‘shagging each other’s brains out’.” Sherlock tugged him back into the room.  “Come on, we’re doing that again.”

            “Sherlock!”

            “What?  It’s for _science_ , John.”

            The Doctor chuckled to himself.  “Come on, plenty of time for that later—you two, clothes on, my room in a minute.  I need you to watch River while I take the Ponds home, and then I’ll get you to 221B.”  He went back to his room and scooped up his daughter.  “Come on, darling, I’m going to show you something quick before I take home your grandparents.”

            Lyra immediately woke up, very cross at being roused from her warm nap, and began to cry.  The Doctor shushed her soothingly like a pro and propelled the TARDIS to his favorite galaxy, where the stars actually danced.  It happened to be right by constellation that was her namesake.

            He opened the door and showed his daughter the stars, which twirled in their celestial spheres to a dance the no one could see but him, and possibly his own Time Lord child.  “See that one, Lyra?  That pretty one over there is the one I named you after.  It looks big instrument that a bunch of old men a long time ago saw in the sky, but they didn’t know its secret—it doesn’t just look like a lyre.  It’s its own heavenly instrument, and if you listen very closely, you can hear it play.”  He propped Lyra on his shoulder, where she looked up with wonder at the sky.  The starlight bounced off her warm brown eyes.

            The Doctor pressed a kiss to her forehead as she sucked her thumb.  “Your mum loves this one.  She can hear it sometimes, too, but not all the time.  Only full Time Lords can pick up on its music, and you, my dear, are a Time Lady.  You should be able to hear it all your life, if you listen hard enough.  Isn’t it pretty, love?”

            She gurgled in response and nestled into her father’s chest.

            “I’m glad you think so,” he responded.  “Your mom doesn’t think I can speak baby.  We’ll prove her wrong, eh?”

            Another coo came out of Lyra.

            “No, Lyra, the bowtie _is_ cool.  And if you talk to me that way again, I’m going to buy you a whole collection.”  He laughed with his baby and looked at the stars a little longer.  “I’m sorry, dear, I’m rubbish at this whole parenthood thing, but I’ve been given a gift.  I intend on being here for you, sweetheart, until the very end of my days.  I won’t let anything happen to you, I promise.”

            Lyra let out a happy cry.

            “Of course I love you, you silly goose.  I’m your dad!  It’s in the contract!”

            She blew spit bubbles out of her mouth.

            “Oi, hungry again?  I’m showing you your first wonder of the universe and all you can think about is food?”

            He sighed and closed the door, taking Lyra back to River and then making sure Sherlock and John were with them as he escorted the Ponds home with hugs and promises of seeing each other again.  Then he took the TARDIS to 221B Baker Street and parked it as neatly as he could in the middle of their living room.

            “Come on, boys!  If Sexy got the timing right, it’s the same night you left.”

            Sherlock and John exited the TARDIS and looked at their home, which seemed oddly foreign to them after running around space and messing with time.  “It seems…unreal,” John breathed, touching Sherlock’s dressing gown on the chair.

            “It always feels a bit weird coming back, yeah,” the Doctor agreed.  “But don’t worry!  You’ll see me again, in the future, and we’ll all have fun!  In the meantime, you get to do something I almost never have the chance to do.”

            “What’s that?”

            “Be with the person you love for as long as you like.”  The Doctor hugged them both.  “Take care, you two.  You were brilliant.  And say hello to Hamish for me, when he comes along!”

            They gave him bewildered looks as he whizzed away on his magical machine.

            Sherlock sank into his chair, feeling oddly tired and strained as he fit into the familiar crevices of the seat.  “I think I need a drink.”

            “I’ll say.  Does it really just end like that?  One day, we’re running for our lives, breaking the pattern of time, dying a million ways, and then the next, we’re back to tea and jumpers and jam?”

            Sherlock steepled his fingers.  “I shall have to get another case.  My mind won’t be able to handle the tedium.”

            “I think we have a bigger problem than tedium,” John said gravely, sitting on Sherlock’s lap.

            Sherlock, unsurprisingly, didn’t flinch at the contact.  In the past twenty-four hours, he’d gone from just being hopelessly in love with this man to entering some sort of relationship with him, shagging him a good one, and saving the universe with him.  It all felt a bit strange, but it was something he could sort through later, when he had time to skim through the data.  “What’s the problem?”

            “How are we going to tell Lestrade?”

            Sherlock’s laughter boomed through the flat.  “Oh, he’s been betting with Anderson and Donovan how long it would take us to get together for the past year.  I’m sure he’ll be quite pleased.”

            John laughed with him, and then his brow furrowed.  There was something he was forgetting, something at the back of his mind…  For an odd moment, he could nearly remember something he was sure hadn’t happened, and he felt a phantom pain in his side and remembered being hurt and holding onto Sherlock tightly, with a bowtie between their hands.  He remembered that they’d done something important, at some point he couldn’t identify.  “Sherlock?”

            “Yes?”

            He shook his head.  “Never mind.  Have I told you lately how bloody much I love you?”

            “Oh, I don’t know.  We’ll probably have to run some tests.”

            “Would these tests happen to be physical?”

            “Some of them.”

            “There is something I don’t get.”

            “Pray tell.”

            John shrugged.  “I’m just wondering.  What did the Doctor mean when he said ‘say hello to Hamish’?”

            Sherlock rolled his eyes.  “Honestly, John, can’t you guess?”

            “Enlighten me.”

            “If we’re going to be in this...”

            “Relationship.”

            “Yes, whatever it is…well, I’ll have to teach you the power of deductive reasoning.”

            “I thought that’s what I have you for?”

            “I might not always be around.”

            “Well, I intend on never leaving your side again, so I won’t need to learn,” John said.  “So sod off.”

            “ _You_ sod off.”

            The men sat in silence for a while, listening to the calm tick of the clock.

            “We’re going to have to talk in the morning, aren’t we?”

            Sherlock sighed.  “Probably.  Boundaries, expectations, ‘meeting the parents’…  Dull.”

            “Right.”  John suddenly looked hopeful.  “The morning’s at least four hours off.  Want to shag until then?”

            Sherlock leapt off the chair, knocking John right off his lap, leaving him aghast on the floor as Sherlock flew like a bat out of hell to John’s bedroom.  “Are you going to continue gaping at me, or are you coming with me?  I _can_ conduct this type of experiment by myself, but I hear it’s preferable with a partner.”

            “ _I bloody hate you, Sherlock Holmes_.”


	18. Chapter 18

The Doctor really had thought all of his troubles were over by now.  He’d been hoping and bargaining at the back of his vast mind that all the pain and struggling was over and he could just be with his family for at least _one day_ …

            But he wasn’t the last of the Time Lords anymore—nothing could ever be that simple.  He wasn’t surprised when he walked back into his home and arranged to carry them to the time vortex and the screens on the console flashed an angry, warning red.

            A low wail was heard from the other room, not coming from his daughter, and it got louder.  His wife was screaming.

            “River,” he called.  “I’m coming!  I’m coming!  We’re going to be okay!”

            “ _DOCTOR!!!_ ” she cried, clutching a small blanket to her chest and searching the bed around her.  “ _DOCTOR, SHE’S GONE!_ ”

            He froze in place for one horrific second before jumping onto the bed and tearing through the sheets.  “No—no, no, she can’t be—where was the last place you saw her???”

            Tears began to stream down River’s face, and she looked pale with terror.  “I was holding her _in my arms_ , Doctor!  I was looking at her, and she disappeared!  Quick!” She bounded out of the bed, tripping over herself to leave the room.  “The TARDIS will find her—we need to latch onto her coordinates NOW!  Doctor, quickly!  Doctor, hurry, we’ve got to find her, we’ve got to save her!  She could be anywhere!”

            She continued to trip over herself, falling with exhaustion and confusion, until the Doctor caught her by the upper arms.  “Love, you’ve got to stay calm!”

            “I CAN’T STAY CALM!  OUR DAUGHTER IS GONE!  I CAN’T LET HER DIE!” River screamed, beating against his chest.  “Let me _go_ , let me GO, you idiot!  LYRA!  LYRA, WHERE ARE YOU?!?”  
            “River—”

            She threw herself out of his arms and wobbled down to the control panel of the TARDIS.  “Come on, old girl, find her!  Find my baby!  Please!  NO!” She yelled, slamming the TARDIS when it couldn’t lock onto her baby’s location.  Her daughter had disappeared.  “No, no, no…Doctor, please, help!!!” Even on her knees, she tried to type new options in and pilot the TARDIS back to the closed off universe.

            He slowly walked down the stairs with a broken and heavy heart.  He carefully scooped up River’s sobbing form and rocked her as she screamed into his chest.  “River, my darling…”

            “No, no, _no_ …I’ve got to find her, I’ve got to find my baby…she disappeared, Doctor, why did she do that?  She was perfectly fine.  She was healthy.”

            “I’m so sorry, my love.  I didn’t know,” he said quietly, tears of his own flowing down his cheeks and into her messy hair.  “I didn’t realize it until it was too late.  Time is trying to right itself completely and rid itself of every toxic thing that happened because of Moriarty, and that includes Lyra’s birth.”

            “But she’s our daughter!  She’s our baby!” She pounded on his chest with her fists.  “Fix it, _fix it_ , FIX IT, damn it!”

            “River, River, my darling,” he whispered into her hair as she continued to beat against him and eventually subsided into hopeless, bereaved sobs.

            “Doctor, she’s _our baby_ …they took her…we have to get her back…”

            “Shhh, River, it’s going to be all right…”

            “She just disappeared.  Right out of my arms.  Please, Doctor, you have to save her.  Tell me you know how.”

            The Doctor breathed his grief into his wife’s hair, not letting it overwhelm him, when he remembered what his past self had said to him before he’d left Pete’s World.  He’d made arrangements, just in case… He’d seen this coming, somehow.

            He let go of River, who clung to him for dear life, and did some digging around on the TARDIS mainframe.

            _There._

_Oh, you clever, clever man._

“What is it?” River sniffed from the floor.  She pulled herself up and clutched the console for balance.  “What did you do???”  
            “River,” he said very clearly, “I know you’re not fine right now, but you just might be.  Do you trust me?”

            She looked into his eyes and blue met grey-green.  “With everything.”

            He nodded, swallowed, and typed furiously as he explained.  “We—I had an inkling something like this might happen, and I took the liberty of doing something preemptive, for once.  I…saved Lyra.  I saved her into the TARDIS mainframe.”

            River’s brow creased.  “Like a computer file?”

            “Her DNA, her basic make-up, everything.  It’s running around the TARDIS right now, so the ship is keeping her memory alive.  It won’t last forever, though.”

            “What can we do?  Can we get her back?”

            “Not exactly,” the Doctor said.  “But the TARDIS can send the file out, almost like an email.  If the TARDIS can manage it, she can be downloaded somewhere in the universe up to 13 times.”

            “One for each regeneration.  But how will we be able to find her?”

            “We won’t.  After I send her, we’ll have to delete her from the mainframe so the paradoxes of the past few days won’t catch up with her and eat her up.  But she won’t have any memory of us.  She probably won’t be a Time Lady, either—she’ll be a human copy of our girl, appearing over and over.  Each time she dies, a new copy of her will be born to new parents.”

            River shook her head.  “She’s _our_ baby girl.  Not some other couple’s.  We’ll never even get to meet her.”

            The Doctor enveloped her in a hug.  “The universe has a funny way of working these things out.  Trust me, I _will not_ _rest_ until I find her.  I won’t, not for a second.  She should appear about the same for each regeneration, since I only saved her in her first incarnation, so it’s a start.  We’ll look for a woman who appears in the same form 13 times.  It’s the best we’ve got.”  His fingers hovered over the buttons.  “Should I do this?”

            River looked hard at the button he was about to push before weakly wrapping her hand around the Doctor’s.  “Together.”  They pressed it together and the TARDIS went green with its work.  River slumped into him, exhausted and broken from the shock of losing her child, and the Doctor carried her to their room.  “We’ll find her, River.  She’s going to be brilliant.  We will find her, I promise you.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

            River stayed for nearly a month.  It was rough on both of them—they were used to adventures that took a few days, and the forced proximity was taxing, considering recent events.  It was hard to look at her eyes sometimes.  They accused him, blamed him for this monumental loss, and he couldn’t take it.  But eventually her anger at him subsided, not having a foothold, and she let herself depend on him.  More than once, they had truly spectacular fights that ended in nights of holding each other and crying.

            The Doctor squashed the loss he felt as best he could, for River’s sake.  It gnawed at him, along with his other mistakes, at the back of his mind.

            After two weeks, he tried to start again with her.  He’d silently pilot the TARDIS (brakes off) to a calm, isolated planet with purple oceans and open the door, coaxing her out.  They’d sit on the beach together, wade out in the water, and then, after a few hours of silence and tentative smiles, the Doctor would kiss the water off of River’s soaked face.

            _I’m sorry I let this happen to us._

_You are always and completely forgiven, my Doctor._

Then there were open markets in bazaars all over the universe, where they would hold hands and buy ridiculous artifacts for River, but those usually wouldn’t end well.  They’d pass a tent selling cradles and fall back into their sadness.

            They’d spend hours fixing the console under the main deck together, passing each other tools without a word. 

The Doctor made fish fingers and custard in the kitchen and ate them alone one night, wondering how he could possibly fix this.  River had been asleep for hours.

Without waking her up, he piloted the blue box to Stormcage and slipped out.

The cell was dark—well, it was always dark—and the rain pounded predictably outside.  River was curled on her bed, flipping through her diary, when she saw him.  “You turned off the brakes.”

“You hate them.”

“Did I say that?” she grinned.  “Well, I might have been lying, dear.”  She noticed the darkness in his eyes and immediately grew concerned.  “What is it, my love?”

He sat at the edge of her cot, determined not to break in front of her, but couldn’t stop himself from crying.

“Oh!” she squeaked, dropping her diary and wrapping her arms around him.  “Hush, sweetie.  It’s going to be all right.  Let me guess—it’s Lyra, isn’t it?”

He was surprised to hear her say the name aloud.  It had been taboo in the TARDIS for so long.  “Yes.  But it’s you, too.  I’m losing you right now, and I don’t know how to fix it.”

“You’re not losing me.  Look at me now, okay?  I’m fine.  Six weeks from now, this is where I’ll be—still in love with you, sweetie.  I don’t blame you for a bit of it.  You _saved_ her.”

“That’s why I came, actually—I needed to know that in the future, you wouldn’t hate me.  Or at least that you’d be all right.”

River looked touched.  “You miss me.”

“Well, you’re technically with me right now.  And back in the TARDIS.”

“It’s not that kind of missing.”  She searched for the words to explain it.  “It’s the sort of missing someone that you feel when you’re with them, but they feel far away.  Or you know that in a short while, you’re going to be apart and you see it coming.”

“See what coming?”

“How much you’re going to miss them when they’re gone.”  Her warm eyes almost glowed in the darkness.  She squeezed his hands.  “Go to her.  She needs you, she’s just afraid of you.  And of herself.  Trust me, you’re going to be fine.”

“How do you know?”

“Spoilers.”  She ushered him back to the TARDIS.  “Give my love to Clara, won’t you?”

He nodded and leaned in for a goodbye kiss, but she stopped him with a warning finger and a teasing smile.  “I’m not the one who needs it, sweetie.  Hurry up, will you?”

She closed the door in his face with a wicked grin and he shook his head at his impossible wife.  Letting it shut quietly, he took the TARDIS to one last place for the chance to patch this up and went to his room, where River had fallen asleep clutching Lyra’s blanket.  The Doctor’s cot was set up in the corner, never used by their daughter but left for her nonetheless.

She moaned in her sleep, her shoulders hunching over in pain, and the Doctor could see that she wore one of his shirts.  She even held a bowtie in her other hand.  River had been right—his wife needed him now more than ever.

He leaned over the bed and wrapped his arms around her from behind, feeling when she woke up and ignored him.  Without a sound, he turned her onto her back and held her face in his hands for a few moments before pressing a long and loving kiss to her lips.

She didn’t pull away, instead looking at him strangely.  He took that as permission and continued to kiss her, running his hands through her infinite hair, like the strands of a sun.  His hand connected with hers around Lyra’s blanket, and he felt her wince.  Still not speaking, he took her by the hand and led her out to the console room, where he opened the door for her to show her the view.

The constellation sparkled and quivered in the night sky, glowing bright green and blue and reflecting brightly in River’s eyes.  She looked about to cry.

He noticed.  “Is it too much?”

She shook her head.  Sitting down in the doorway, she stared up at Lyra in the sky and sighed.

“She can hear it, River,” the Doctor told her.  “Wherever she goes, if she listens hard enough.  It won’t be easy for her—like you, she’s really only Human Plus now.  But you can hear it when you try, and wherever she is right now, if she closes her eyes and wishes hard enough, she can listen to it.  And she’ll know there are two people out there in the universe who are listening with her.”

River nodded.  “Could you…can I get closer?”

He helped her stand up and then, taking her by the ankle, extended her out into the illuminated darkness.

River’s hair, like her own mother’s had, stood out at every angle.  She looked like a lion, or a sun of her own.  She actually laughed to herself and reached out a hand, close enough to feel like she could close her hands around the brightness of Lyra and pull it close to her chest.

The Doctor’s too-big shirt billowed around her.  “Oi, stop checking out my bum,” she joked at him, earning herself a surprised laugh.

“I wasn’t, honestly.  Not until you mentioned it.”  He pulled her down and she kissed him.

“Thank you.  I didn’t know how much I needed that.”

“How do you feel?”

“Like I’m about to begin.”  She sighed into his chest.  “I’m ready to start moving on.  I’d like for you to take me home tomorrow morning, if that’s okay.”

“Whatever you want.”

“Start searching tomorrow.  I’ll do the same, once I settle things in my cell and get back.”

“Maybe you should take a few days to rest.”

“My daughter can’t wait.”  She looked at him squarely in the face.  “This is going to take a long time, I’m afraid.  But we’re not stopping until she’s back in our arms.”

“I made a promise, didn’t I?”  He kissed her again.  “So what do we do until the morning?”

She gave him a suggestive grin.  “Oh, I had a few ideas, sweetie…”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

True to his word, he took exactly five minutes.  She’d time to walk to a shop on the corner (two minutes), place an order (one minute), and get started on her chips (two more minutes) when she saw the familiar blinking through the shop window that meant the TARDIS had landed outside.

He walked out, looking worn and very, very tired.  Spotting her waving a hand, he walked to the shop and sat down with her.  “Am I late?”

Clara shook her head.  “Exactly on time, Chin Boy.  Have some chips, you look awful.  Where were you?”

“Oh, here and there.  Popping through different universes, saving my wife, marrying a famous couple, meeting my ex-girlfriend, and dealing with a psychopath who for once wasn’t my wife.”

She laughed.  “You always do the best stuff without me.”

“Trust me, this wasn’t the kind of adventure you’d want to be on.”

“Everything all right?” she asked, eyeing him.  “You look…listen, if there’s anything really wrong, you can tell me.  You’re my best friend, Doctor, and I’d do anything to help you.”

He smiled.  “No, everything will be okay.  You consider me your best friend?”

She smacked him playfully on the arm.  “Eat your chips.  Of course you are.  You’re an idiot, but you’re my best friend.  However weird our friendship is.  So, where are we going?”

“On a scavenger hunt.  I need to find someone important to me.”

“Oh, but we’re already on a hunt like that!” she whined.  “Who’d you lose?”

“I can’t really say.  But we need to start keeping an eye out.  I think I know where to start looking, too.  Come on!” he said, taking her by the hand and into the TARDIS.

Somehow, everything felt right when she came in.  The familiar dynamic and desire for adventure was back.  Things were almost at peace.  “Where are we headed?” Clara asked, whirling around the box to search for the magazine she’d been reading.

            “Neptune 23, a planet full of lost things.  If you’ve ever lost anything you couldn’t find, it’s been transferred to Neptune 23.”

            “I could do with a look around there—I lost a bracelet once that I never did get back,” Clara said, and then she started humming.

            The Doctor stopped in his tracks immediately and listened.  “What are you doing?”

            “Humming.  Got a problem with that, Doctor?”

            “No, no,” he said, walking to her with purpose.  She gave him a confused look as he grasped her by the shoulders.  “ _Where did you learn that song_?”

            “I don’t know, sometimes people just hum things,” she snapped.  “It doesn’t have to make sense.  I made it up.”

            “No one ever makes anything up—it’s too much of a coincidence, and I don’t believe in those.”  He looked at the magazine she’d been reading.  “What is that?”

            “This?  I picked it up last time you dropped me off.  It’s a astronomer’s magazine,” she explained.  “I was circling some of my favorites.  I was thinking, maybe we could go on a star tour and see all of them up close.”

            He snatched it from her hands and ignored her protests as he flipped through the magazine, pausing briefly to look at each of the ones she’d circled.  “What is this one?” he asked.

            “What one?”

            “THIS ONE, CLARA!” he exclaimed, forcing the magazine back into her hands.  “Which one did you circle in red, three times!?”

            She frowned.  “That’s Vega.  It’s the third brightest star in the northern hemisphere.”

            “How did you know that?  People don’t _know_ that!”

            “I did a lot of research, okay?  What is your problem?”

            He shook his head.  “Vega was important to you.  It’s only the third brightest star in a small part of the sky no one really sees or cares about, yet you circled it in red pen, three times.  Why???”  
            “It’s just part of a star formation I like!  Geez, Doctor, calm down, you’re shaking!” she said, putting her hands on his shoulders.  “Whatever is going on, you can tell me!”

            He swallowed.  “Your favorite star formation?”

            “Yeah, well, one of them.  I don’t rank them like some people I know,” she joked weakly.  “It’s the brightest star in Lyra, the constellation that makes up a lyre.  You know what lyres are, yeah?  Those stringed instruments?  Knowing you, I bet you even invented them.”

            The Doctor stared at Clara with unfathomable eyes. 

“Doctor, what is going on?”

“I can’t believe this.  It all makes too much sense.”  He bounded up to the console and searched his databases for exactly what his past self did before he left the TARDIS to save them from the destruction of the paradoxes.  “See, when he was working fast to make the save, he must have had a lot on his mind, and it’s a simple letter switch.  He must have been worried about you, too, and it’s an easy mistake to make—I should have seen this sooner.  I can’t believe this.  _Clara_.”

“What?  Doctor, you’re not making sense!”

He started the engines and took the TARDIS back to where it had been the night before, and then he dragged Clara by the hand to the doors and threw them open.

“Doctor, are you crazy??!? What’s going on??” she shouted at him until she saw space in front of her.  “Well, thanks for taking me to see Vega, but I still don’t get it.”

He placed two hands on her temples.  “Close your eyes.”

“Wha—”

“Just close them and try to focus.”

“Focus on what, you crazy man?”

“ _Clara_.”

“Sorry.  Okay, focusing.”  She closed her eyes and felt very irritated and the Doctor’s panicked behavior, still smarting from being pulled to the doors.  But after a few seconds of anger, she calmed down and just let her mind go blank.

At the very edge of her mind, at the place where things vanish before they start to make sense and all manner of things had always seemed elusively possible, Clara heard the faint strains of an unearthly melody.  “Doctor!” she gasped.  “The song…the one I was humming…”

She didn’t open her eyes just yet.

“Clara.”

“Run, you clever boy, and remember.”  She squeezed her eyes shut.  “I keep saying it—she told me to say it.  I didn’t know what she meant.  I didn’t know what she wanted you to remember.”

“What did she want me to remember?”

“The TARDIS…she wanted you to remember that…you said you’d protect me.”  She shook her head.  “You did protect me, from the WiFi monsters and everything.  But she didn’t mean that…she meant…she said you’d remember…I told you I thought it was pretty.  I thought Lyra was pretty.”

“Clara.”

“She knew you typed it wrong into the mainframe, but she thought you’d remember faster if she didn’t correct it…Doctor, she’s in my head, she’d been in here this whole time—and I didn’t know!” She cried out and folded down into a small ball on the floor.  The Doctor followed her and held her by the shoulders as she rocked herself.

“Clara, what else do you remember?”

“You loved me.  You said it was in your contract.”

“I still love you.  I never stopped, and I’m never going to.”

“Doctor, it hurts.  I don’t understand!!!”’

The Doctor was in the grip of shock, his eyes clouding over with disbelief, until he snapped himself out of it somewhat and threw his arms around Clara.  “It’s going to be okay.  I’m going to protect you.”  He planted a firm kiss on her forehead, and somehow that connection, that understanding, made the throbbing in Clara’s mind go away.

She looked up at him and blinked through a few tears.  He smiled widely at her and booped the tip of her nose.  “My hair—I’d hoped it’d be River’s.  It doesn’t matter.  None of it matters.”

“I still don’t quite understand.”

“Don’t worry, dear.  I’m going to explain everything, but first,” he said, “I think it’s time you met my wife, River Song.  She is going to be very, _very_ pleased to see you again.”


End file.
